


In Times of War

by MalecMarshmallow



Series: In Times of... Universe [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Parent Maryse Lightwood, Character Death, F/M, M/M, Magic War, Non-Graphic Torture, Original Character(s), Romance, prisoner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 09:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7216420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecMarshmallow/pseuds/MalecMarshmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war between Shadowhunters and Warlocks had been raging for two hundred years. Alec was the perfect soldier, that is until he got captured by the warlocks. Perhaps everything about this war wasn't as black and white as Alec had always been taught. And enter Magnus Bane, the infuriatingly handsome warlock who seems determined to change everything Alec knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> Here's my new story that I've been working on. It's gonna be pretty different to Of Royalty and Romance but I'm excited about writing more of it.  
> So far I've outlined ten chapters of this story, but there will be a few more than that. The prologue of this story is pretty short so I've put it in together with chapter 1.  
> I hope you guys like it, let me know what you think!  
> Enjoy~~

  


Prologue

“Oof,” Alec felt all his breath whoosh out of him all at once as a fist connected with his solar plexus. A burst of green magic surrounded him and threw him back across the glade. There were too many of them and he was alone. He tried to fight back but nothing was working. The grip of magic was too strong.

Why had he followed that demon? It had separated him from Isabelle, Jace and Clary and led him straight into a Warlock camp.

How could he have been so overconfident and so stupid?

He was going to die because of it. 

The war was finally going to rip him away from this world. To be honest, he was lucky he had lasted until he was twenty. Some were much less lucky. 

The magic assaulting his body granted him a brief reprieve, and he shakily pulled himself up onto his knees, silently saying goodbye to his family and reciting a quick prayer to the Angels. 

“Any last words, shadowhunter?” The warlocks were surrounding him. The one directly in front of him was powering up his magic in his hands. Alec knew this would be the magic that ended his life. 

He remained silent. A shadowhunter did not beg for their life. Last words weren’t needed. He’d said what he’d needed to in his mind. 

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and relaxed his body. He was ready. At least he had taken the demon down with him, if not any of the warlocks. 

Perhaps his siblings would follow Alec’s trail and find the warlocks. They could get rid of them together. That last thought gave him all the strength he needed to face his impending doom. 

A searing heat enveloped him, worse than anything he’d ever felt before. He wouldn’t scream. 

“Stop! Wait, stop!” A voice? Was he imagining it?

“He’s a Lightwood, stop!” Everything faded to black. Alec didn’t hear or feel anything anymore.

  


Chapter 1

Pain. Darkness. Movement. Pain. Light. Voices. Whispers. Pain. Stillness. Darkness.

The feelings and awareness came in stages as Alec drifted in and out of consciousness. 

Was he dead? Was this what being dead felt like? Why could he still feel pain?

Who was talking? Angels? 

What was happening?

An unknown amount of time later, Alec felt a groan pass through his lips and his eyes fluttered open, unseeing at first, but slowly taking in his surroundings. 

It was dark, but he wasn’t inside. He was on the ground and could feel the earth underneath his hands. Looking above him, he could see the moon. 

Where was he? With another moan of pain, Alec pushed himself into a sitting position, with what appeared to be a tree behind him, which he leant against to support himself. 

He lifted his arms so he could see them more clearly. He was covered in burns. No wonder his body hurt so much.

What had happened to him?

Taking a closer look at his surroundings he realized that he was in a cell of some kind. The branches of the tree behind him and had been twisted and brought to the earth, effectively locking him inside. 

Magic. He’d been taken by the warlocks. That was the only possible explanation.

For some reason they had decided not to kill him.

Fuck, that made Alec angry. Any decent shadowhunter would rather die than be taken prisoner. He thought he was going to die. Why didn’t they kill him? The burn marks on his body were proof enough that they had intended to kill him. 

Then he remembered the voice. Someone had told the warlocks to stop, just because he was a Lightwood. They probably thought they could use him for something. He would have laughed if he body wasn’t in so much pain. There was no way he would give up any information to them. And he knew a ransom would be ignored. It was his own fault he’d gotten captured, no one would come for him. 

He became aware of the sounds of something moving. Something or someone was getting closer to his cell. His body tensed through the pain, he would always be prepared for anything, no matter what. 

“So I see you’re finally awake.” A man said. No, not a man. A warlock. This warlock had dark skin and horns protruding from the top of his forehead. No one could mistake this creature for a man. Not without some powerful glamours. Alec stayed silent. 

“My name is Elias, I’m your guard.” Alec just stared, he wasn’t going to lower himself even further by talking. 

“Don’t you want to know where you are?” Alec tilted his head, giving the warlock a look. 

“Suit yourself.” There was a flair of orange, and a chair appeared near to the cell, which Elias slumped down into. He was only quiet for about thirty seconds.

“This is our main camp. Like our home. This is our Idris,” Alec groaned, hitting his head back against the tree feeling his headache intensify. Did this guy never shut up?

“You should feel honoured that you’ve been granted entry here. Many of us think you shouldn’t have been, but it’s not like you could find your way back if we ever let you go. I’m not sure the likelihood of that though, since so many of us think we should have killed you.”

God he was a rambler. Alec hated ramblers, ignoring the fact that he could turn into one himself in certain situations. Maybe that’s why he hated it so much, because it was a bad quality that he could recognize in himself. 

Or maybe it was just because this was a warlock and he hated them. All of them. 

The war between shadowhunters and warlocks had begun around two hundred years ago. Shadowhunters were taught as young children how the warlocks had challenged the Clave and tried to take power for themselves, attempting to destroy all nephilim in the process. 

As if that would ever happen. Two hundred years and they still hadn’t come close to achieving their goal. Well, the shadowhunters hadn’t won the war yet either, but they would. 

Alec realized that while his mind had been away thinking about the war, the warlock was still talking. 

“...a good idea, right?” Alec just rolled his eyes. They must have used magic to find out what would make him want to kill himself the most. This had to be a warlock form of torture. He cracked.

“Will you just shut up!?” The warlock jumped a little, surprised by Alec’s outburst. He had the nerve to look offended.

“Hey come on, I was just trying to be friendly here...”

“Well don’t.” Alec spoke with a tone of finality. The warlock huffed and slumped down in his seat some more. 

Finally, Alec had some quiet. 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Isabelle grimaced as the last demon in front of her turned to goo, covering her in a foul smelling greenish liquid. 

“Yuck. Why are demons so gross?” She questioned to no one in particular. There wasn’t anyone around to hear her anyway. 

That was until Clary came jogging into the clearing Isabelle had just cleaned out. 

“Iz, are you okay? I’m sorry we got separated from you...” Isabelle grinned.

“Of course I’m fine. Where are Jace and Alec?” On cue, Jace appeared out of the trees. His eyes swept over Isabelle, checking for injuries. He nodded his satisfaction when he saw she wore nothing more than a few scratches and demon blood. 

He did notice one of her earrings was missing, damn Izzy would be pissed when she realized that later!

“Everything clear your side of things?” Isabelle asked them.

“Yes,” Clary answered. 

“So now do you guys want to tell me where my big brother is?” Isabelle had moved in their direction, trying to look for a sign of Alec through the trees.

Clary turned to look at Jace and they frowned at each other. Izzy caught them.

“What’s that look for? What happened?” 

“Alec got separated from us too.” Jace told her, finally. He had prepared himself for the full weight of her glare, but it still almost made him flinch away. Izzy could be terrifying when she wanted to be.

“What direction did he go? How could you lose him? We have to search now.” Storming away through the trees, Clary and Jace had little option but to follow her. 

~~~

An hour later and Isabelle was almost in hysterics. They had tracked signs of demon movement and found themselves in an abandoned warlock camp. There had been no signs of Alec, but shadowhunters were taught how to always conceal their presence. 

This must have been where Alec had ended up. 

Clary rested her hand comfortingly on Isabelle’s shoulder. 

“Don’t worry, we’re going to find him okay? He’s fine, he probably just got lost somewhere,”

“Got lost in a warlock camp?” Izzy returned, bitterly. 

“Don’t think like that,” Jace almost shouted at her, forgetting that they were in enemy territory and should probably be keeping quiet.

“How does your bond feel?” Clary asked. Jace brought his hand to rest on his rune. Alec and Jace were parabatai, warriors and brothers bound together. In battle their hearts beat as one. If one were to die, the other would feel like he had lost half of himself. 

“Alec isn’t dead, but...” He trailed off. Isabelle fixed him with another deadly glare.

“But _what_ Jace?”

“A while ago I felt pain through the bond. But we were all dealing with the demons, I assumed it was just pain from the fight. Maybe it was the warlocks.”

Izzy held in a scream and settled for smacking Jace on the shoulder.

“How can you not tell the difference between a battle injury and being in serious trouble?! You know what, never mind. I just need to find Alec. How does the bond feel now?” 

Jace looked thoroughly chastised, even though Izzy had barely yelled at him. He closed his eyes and focused on the bond that tied him to his parabatai. 

Concern racked through him when he realized he couldn’t feel anything. 

“He must be unconscious. I can’t sense him at all.”

Isabelle seemed close to tears again, but she wouldn’t let them spill over. A shadowhunter didn’t cry. In times of war, death and loss was inevitable. They’d been raised with it, and they knew how to deal with it. 

“Come on,” Clary said gently, “We should get back to the Institute and report this to Maryse. We’ll need backup if we’re going to find Alec.” 

Reluctantly Isabelle agreed and the three of them trudged back out of the Forest Park where they had been fighting and found their way back to the New York Institute. 

~~~

Maryse Lightwood was an impressive and terrifying woman to behold. She held herself tall and had a formidable no nonsense attitude which was clear from the first moment anyone saw her. As the Head of the New York Institute she had certain reputations to uphold after all. 

Currently, she had only looks of disdain for the three young shadowhunters standing in the entry hall of her Institute. She eyed their disheveled appearances and nervous dispositions. She knew that they weren’t going to deliver a report of a successfully completed mission. 

“Where is Alexander?” She asked at last, unimpressed when all she received were looks of hesitation.

“Do not make me repeat myself,” Came the harsh order. As his parabatai, Jace stepped forward to deliver the news. 

“What do you mean gone?”

“There’s no sign of him. There was an abandoned warlock camp where their had clearly been a fight. We couldn’t see Alec’s body so we can only assume he’s been taken prisoner.”

Maryse’s silence was more unnerving than anything she could have been yelling at them.

“How could you let this happen? Never mind, I don’t want to hear your excuses.” She cut Jace off as soon as he’d opened his mouth.

“I’m disappointed in all of you. Tomorrow, you will return to the camp sight and look for anything you might have missed. You will find Alexander and bring him back. Understood?”

Despite fearing that there would be nothing else to find, the three assented their agreement and were finally allowed away from the glare of their commander. 

Clary fell into Jace’s arms for support the moment they were far enough away. 

“God, your mother scares me sometimes,” She admitted, hiding her face in her boyfriend’s neck. Izzy chuckled,

“Yeah you’re not alone. When I was a child warlocks weren’t the subjects of my nightmares, my mother was.”

“Come on, she’s not that bad,” Jace defended. 

“Hey, you didn’t know her until you were ten. If you’d have met her earlier you’d have been scared shitless of her too.” Jace shrugged but didn’t argue. Izzy was probably right anyway. 

He understood enough from Alec what it had been like to grow up with Maryse Lightwood as your mother. She was tough and unrelenting. There was so much expectation on her children to be perfect that she accepted nothing less. 

Jace started pulling Clary along again to their shared room.

“Come on, let’s clean up and sleep. We’ll need to be well rested for tomorrow,” Izzy agreed and said goodnight, before heading off to her own bedroom. 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Alec’s ears perked up when he heard the sound of someone approaching his cell. He’d had blissful silence for the last few hours, his guard finally having given up on trying to talk with him.

He’d passed the time by playing with his magic and skimming it across his hands. Alec had kept his gaze down with disgust. He hated the use of magic. 

“What are you doing here?” His guard asked the newcomer, whom Alec still couldn’t see. 

“I’m here to take over and explain things. You’re free to go, Elias.” It was a male, Alec could tell from the voice. 

“Thank god. This is the most boring shadowhunter I’ve ever met,” The new man laughed.

“Well I’m sure I’ll find out.” Elias happily scampered away leaving Alec and the newcomer alone together. 

It was dawn now, small bright rays of light were beginning to seep into the glade. The newcomer moved to sit down on the chair that Elias had left behind and... _oh_. He was beautiful. 

Alec had never seen a more beautiful man. Warlock. Oh gods, what was wrong with him? How could he be finding a warlock attractive? 

True, he didn’t have any obvious warlock marks that Alec could see, but that didn’t change what this man obviously was. 

Alec was lost in his eyes, a deep dark brown lined with golden glitter which complemented his skin tone perfectly. He was clearly of Asian descent and was tall, perhaps not as tall as Alec but not many people were, with strong muscles clearly hidden beneath his clothes. 

And oh, his clothes. The warlock was wearing a sheer red shirt with an open neck, revealing a large portion of his chest where Alec found himself staring after managing to tear himself away from the warlock’s eyes. 

His leather pants were tight and Alec was willing to bet they molded to his ass perfectly. Alec had a brief moment where he wished the warlock would stand and turn around for him. 

Stop, he told himself internally, he shouldn’t be thinking this way. This was a warlock. Someone who he had been trained to hate and kill since birth. 

A small cough brought Alec’s attention back to the warlock’s face. The warlock was smirking at him. Annoyingly, Alec felt a blush staining his cheeks. Of course the warlock had caught him staring. 

“So, it’s nice to finally meet you Alexander Lightwood.”

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Why was Alec talking to him? “You know me but I don’t know you,”

The warlock looked mildly amused.

“Well than, allow me to enlighten you. Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn at your service.” Magnus made a small bow from his seat in a mocking gesture. 

Recognition flooded Alec. He knew about Magnus Bane. This was one of the most powerful warlocks in existence. They had files on him at the Institute, Alec had been taught all about this warlock. He’d seen a picture once, a long time ago, but it hadn’t done justice to the man sitting before him. But one word kept flashing in his mind... _dangerous_. Alec was in trouble.

“I know your voice,” Alec told him, “You were the one who stopped them from killing me. Why?”

“Why do you think I did it?” Alec shrugged, determinedly ignoring the spike of pain it sent through his body to do so. 

“How should I know? I don’t know how you warlocks think. But you know I won’t give you anything. Since you want all of us shadowhunters dead anyway, surely it would have been better to kill me?”

Magnus stood and approached the cell, leaning in closer to get a better look at Alec. 

“You think we want all of you dead? You really don’t know anything about this war, do you?” Alec frowned, what was that supposed to mean? “  
Well, I can’t have someone like you thinking like that,” Magnus’ hands began to glow blue and the tree branches began returning to their normal state, “Come on, pretty boy. Let me show you around.”

Pretty boy? Did Magnus think he was pretty? Was he just toying with him? Alec held in his confusion as he used the tree to help himself stand and slowly limped his way over to the warlock. 

He was led through a fairly large area with lots of trees which were also clearly used as cells when needed and then abruptly into a whole bustling village within the forest. 

Magnus stepped out and spread his arms dramatically wide, a grin on his face.

“Welcome to our world, Alexander,”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, chapter two :D  
> Thank you for all your lovely comments and kudos so far, they give me so much life :)  
> Enjoy~~

“Hey, look over here!” Izzy called and immediately had Jace and Clary by her side. 

“Look, there’s portal residue here,” She indicated to the area just in front of her, “I mean, I know it was a warlock camp but the fact that there’s still residue right in the center could mean Alec was taken through.”

The three of them had been scouring the camp since dawn, trying hopelessly to find some sign of Alec.

There was nothing else there. The only thing they could count on was knowing that Alec wasn’t dead. Jace could feel him through the bond again, meaning he had obviously woken up. He wasn’t in any serious pain so Jace wasn’t too worried. He knew his parabatai could take care of himself. 

“But there’s no way we can figure out where it lead to, is there?” Clary asked. 

“No. Not without a warlock and I can’t see any of them offering their services any time soon.”

Clary sighed, “What are we going to report to Maryse? We knew coming back here would be hopeless but she seemed to think Alec would be here waiting.”

“She’s going to be angry. We’re just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. Another failed mission. As long as she doesn’t restrict us so we can’t search for Alec properly it shouldn’t be so bad,” Jace sounded fairly positive about the outcomes, Clary wasn’t sure she shared his optimism. 

“We know for a fact that he was kidnapped,” Isabelle said, “At least we know that for sure. There’s nothing else here, let’s go back.”

~~~

“Well?” Maryse was in her office, sat behind a large hardwood desk which was probably older than the war with the warlocks. It had served many heads of Institute over the years. 

“Nothing new at the scene and Alec was nowhere to be found. There was some portal residue, so we’re positive that Alec was taken captive. Especially since Jace can feel him through the bond,” Isabelle sounded much more confident than she felt as she explained her part of the report. 

Maryse eyed them all individually, “You all agree? You think Alexander has been taken?”

They nodded. Maryse sighed irritably. 

“That’s very disappointing.”

“Disappointing?” Izzy questioned, “Aren’t you worried about him?”

“My son can take care of himself. It was his own fault that he caught. And your fault for letting him get separated from you.”

It wasn’t worth arguing with her. When Maryse wasn’t on the battlefield herself she liked to forget that sometimes things happened that weren’t under your control. 

“Do we at least have leave to conduct a search for him?” Jace questioned strongly.

“You think that after all this time, _you_ can find the warlocks hideout?” Maryse laughed, “Don’t be ridiculous. I will put together a search team. You three will remain here and train.” Her tone left no room for argument. 

Maryse returned to signing paperwork and the three young shadowhunters knew without words that they had been dismissed from her presence. 

“How dare she?” Izzy shouted, once they were clear of the office, “If she thinks I’m not looking for my brother...”

“Hey, hey, calm down,” Jace caught her and pulled her in for a much needed hug, “You need to be quiet. Of course we’re going to look but we have to be discreet. We can’t let anyone else find out, alright?” Izzy nodded.

Clary stepped towards them, “So what’s the plan?

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Alec could barely believe what was happening to him. He’d been at the camp for almost a whole week now and if he didn’t know he was a prisoner he would have thought himself some kind of guest. He was free to go anywhere in the camp and do anything he wanted...within reason of course. 

They’d even given him a small tent, similar to the ones warlocks used as their houses, with a bed for him to sleep in. It was pretty comfortable. 

He remembered the talk Magnus had given him when he first set foot in the camp. 

_“You may have noticed that all your weapons and communication devices have been removed,” Magnus didn’t have to tell him that. Alec felt bare without his gear, “So whilst you are here you’ll be free to do what you want. Hurt anyone however, or get into any kind of trouble, and that will change rapidly,” The warlocks eyes had flashed dangerously, “Do you understand?”_

_Alec had just nodded. What could he do? He was weaponless in a camp which seemed to be full of hundreds of warlocks who could all do magic. He’d be dead before he could lay a finger on anyone. Well...that was always something to think about if it seemed like the only way out._

_“And if you go off wandering, don’t think that you can escape. There are some very strong wards out there and be sure someone is always watching you.”_

_Before Magnus left Alec to himself, he remembered the warlock hesitating and glancing at Alec’s body as if he’d forgotten something._

_“Oh, you must be in pain, Alexander.” Alec didn’t dignify that with a response, “Would you like me to heal you?” To say Alec was shocked was a bit of an understatement._

_“What?”_

_“Heal you. I can make your burns go away. But if you’d prefer I didn’t use magic on you, that’s your choice.” For some reason Alec trusted Magnus not do anything else magical to him._

_“Okay.” Magnus looked surprised, but not unhappily so. He moved slowly, so as to not startle Alec and lifted his hands to hover over Alec’s skin. A blue light appeared and as Magnus moved, his arms returned to their usual appearance and the pain stopped._

Being in the camp was actually a bit boring. Alec had nothing to do. Most warlocks wouldn’t even look at him and the ones who did just stared in curiosity for a while before continuing on with their day. 

What was he supposed to do? So far he’d contented himself with hiding out in the forest surrounding the main area. Less of the warlocks ventured out there and he was happiest as far away from them as he could be. He couldn’t stand watching them use their magic. It made him feel sick to his stomach. So it meant spending his time alone, but he wasn’t about to start socializing with a bunch of downworlders. It was better this way. 

Coming up with an escape plan was highest on his lists of things to do whilst he was alone. He wandered far through the trees but hadn’t met any kinds of wards of barriers yet. Just how big was this camp? 

It was the morning of his seventh day as prisoner in the camp and he was about to set off into the trees when he heard someone calling his name. 

“Alexander!” Turning, he spotted Magnus jogging towards him. He heart traitorously started beating a little faster. Alec hadn’t seen Magnus at all since that first day, but he’d thought about him often. Remembered how gorgeous he looked, wondered if his hair was as soft as it looked and if his skin was as smooth...

Alec shook the thoughts from his head, as he did every time. He was not thinking about a warlock that way. Especially a _male_ warlock. 

Magnus finally reached him, a small smile lighting his face. 

“Good morning, how are you doing?” He inquired, cheerfully. A bit too cheerfully, if Alec was honest. 

“How am I doing? Okay I suppose. Is your plan to have me bore myself to death?” Magnus laughed. 

“Not at all, perhaps I can arrange something more interesting for you,” Alec wanted to question why Magnus would want to do that, but he didn’t. He felt like that would be playing into whatever game Magnus was trying to play. 

“What do you want, Magnus?” Alec asked irritably. He wasn’t in the mood for games. Magnus became a little more serious, he smile dropping and his posture a little straighter. 

“Sorry to be bothering you, Alexander. I just wanted to check everything was well with you,”

“Why do you even care?” Alec was almost shouting. He didn’t care. What was all this about? What did the warlocks really want. Why were they treating him this way? 

“I-”

“No. Do you know what, I don’t even want to talk to you. Your just a filthy warlock trying to get something from me, which will never happen.” Alec doesn’t miss the flash of hurt that appears in Magnus’ eyes, but it’s gone just as quickly. 

“Alright then,” Magnus walks away without looking back and Alec storms angrily into the forest, wanting to be alone more than ever. Who does that warlock think he is?

Once he’s calmed down a little Alec felt a little pang in his chest, which he was horrified to realize was a lot like guilt. He felt guilty about what he said. About hurting Magnus. 

With an annoyed sigh, he shrugged off the feeling. There was no reason to feel bad about hurting the man responsible for his capture in the first place. 

~~~

It wasn’t until much later in the day, perhaps around three in the afternoon, that another unknown warlock came to find Alec. 

“Alexander Lightwood, you are to come with me.” Alec felt a jolt of worry. 

“Why?” The warlock just turned and began to walk away, clearly expecting to be followed. Alec’s legs began moving on their own. Was someone using magic on him? 

As they neared the main camp, three more warlocks appeared, boxing Alec in so he had nowhere to run. He couldn’t deny the flicker of unease that spread through him. He had been worried about this, they left him alone to give him a sense of ease, then took him when he least expected it. 

The warlocks around them looked nervous as Alec was led through them. Well that really couldn’t be a good sign. 

He was finally brought inside a small plain building which looked very out of place among the rest of the camp’s decor. There was a single chair inside the room and he was unceremoniously pushed down onto it. Yellow magic brought up roots from the earth, chaining his arms and legs to the chair. 

His warlock ‘escorts’ left him alone, but barely minutes later another unnamed warlock that he’d never seen before entered the building. He wasn’t very tall, but seemed rather intimidating. It wasn’t going to work on Alec though, he’d been through worse growing up with Maryse as a mother. 

The warlock leisurely strolled through the room and casually made a chair for himself appear, much like Elias had done before. He twisted it around backwards and spread his legs to sit down, his arms propping himself up on the back of the chair. 

They stared at each other for the longest time. So long that Alec started getting bored again. He had to do something to move this along, if they were going to torture him he’d rather they just got on with it. 

“So is this the part where you kill me, or what?” Alec questioned. The warlock merely grinned, and Alec felt like he’d fallen straight into a trap. 

“We’re not going to kill you, shadowhunter,”

“So you’re all just overly dramatic then? That’s just great,” 

“We’re not going to kill you, but you are going to help us,”

“Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“You’re the eldest son of the Lightwoods,”

“Really? I didn’t know that. Since when?” The warlock ignored this response and stood to move closer to Alec. 

“Your mother is Maryse Lightwood. High up the shadowhunter food chain. Imagine all the things you know about shadowhunter politics and tactics,”

“Nothing that I’m going to tell you. And your severely mistaken if you think my mother reveals Clave secrets to me because I’m her son,”

“Tell me. How did you know about our camp in Queens?”

“Bite me,”

“That’s not very friendly now, is it? Now, who gave you intel about our camp?” Alec didn’t respond this time. He wasn’t about to admit that they’d had no idea about a warlock camp being there. There had been a few rumours about downworlders in the forest, but nothing solid. They were just going to investigate when the demons had attacked and Alec led to the camp. 

“You should tell me shadowhunter, or things might go badly for you,”

Alec snorted, “Please, what can you do to me? If you know anything about shadowhunters you know we’d rather die than give your kind anything,”

“Oh believe me, we know. Which is why we’re not going to kill you. I’ll only ask nicely once more, who gave you the information?”

“Fuck you,” Alec topped it off by spitting in the warlocks face. 

Alec proudly didn’t flinch when the warlock brought their faces close together, “So now we begin,” Alec screamed.

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Jace blocked the blow aimed for his head, before spinning and aimed a thrust at his opponents legs, hoping to unbalance him. The man jumped to avoid it and their wooden staffs clacked together in a series of fast hits. Jace was finally getting the upper hand against his tutor, when pain surged through his parabatai rune.

“Ah!” Jace groaned and dropped his staff, falling to his knees. His tutor, Hodge Starkweather, immediately dropped his own weapon as well and knelt before his student. 

“Jace? What is it?”

“It’s Alec. He’s in pain, they’re hurting him.” Hodge placed a comforting hand on Jace’s shoulder. 

“Take a deep breath, you can’t let his pain control you,” Jace sucked in another breath as another wave of pain came.

“Like hell I can’t! I’m such a useless parabatai. My brother is in pain and I’m here wasting time training. I should be out finding him.” 

Abruptly, the pain stopped and Jace was able to stand again. Hodge looked like he wanted to say something else, but Jace left the training room before he could. 

He went looking for Izzy and Clary and found them in the kitchens eating some snacks. Clary’s best friend, the vampire Simon, was there with them too. 

He told them about what happened and their casual atmosphere instantly turned cold. 

“So, it seems like we don’t have much time before Alec gets really hurt,” Izzy stated unhappily. She’d been secretly hoping that after a week had passed with nothing, that the warlocks weren’t planning on hurting Alec at all. It seemed she’d been wrong. 

“We have to start looking for him properly. Being stuck in here is useless. Maryse won’t even tell us anything about the team she sent out,” Complained Clary. 

Izzy scoffed, “She probably doesn’t even have the team looking. You heard her before, ‘it’s his own fault he got captured’. If he’s being hurt I’m doing something about this now. I don’t care what she thinks.”

“Damn right,” Jace agreed, “Simon, do you think you could speak with Raphael? He might have some information about all this,”

Simon hesitated. Raphael was the current leader of the New York vampire clan and Simon’s sire. But he wasn’t so hopeful that Raphael would be of any help to them.

“I’m not sure. I mean...I can talk to him and ask but...you know he does everything he can to keep the vampires out of this war. They want nothing to do with it, on your side or the warlocks. I’m not even supposed to come here to visit you guys,”

“We have to at least try, right?” Clary reasoned with him.

“Well...I know he does have a couple of warlock contacts. I promise I’ll talk to him, but I can’t guarantee he’s going to be helpful, alright?”

“That’s great, thanks Simon.” Said Jace. The vampire took this as his cue to leave, as it was just getting dark. The sooner he got to Raphael the sooner he’d know if the older vampire could be of any help or not. 

“Now what can we do?” Clary asked, looking at Jace. 

“Clary, you know Maryse will let you out of the Institute if you want to see your mother. Go to Jocelyn and Luke, they might have some ideas,” Clary nodded her agreement and hurried out of the kitchen after Simon. 

“And as for us, let’s search the database again. I know we didn’t find anything useful last time but maybe we’re searching the wrong things. It can’t hurt to look again,”

“Sounds like a plan to me,”

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

When Alec woke up he was back in the same cell from when he’d first arrived in the warlock camp. Magnus was sat just outside the tree branches locking him in. 

Alec winced as he sat up, refusing to meet Magnus’ gaze. 

“Well sleeping beauty, you’re finally awake,” Magnus’ tone wasn’t friendly, “You were such an idiot. I didn’t expect you to tell him anything but did you have to spit in his face? He was under orders not to hurt you - and you had to go and make him angry anyway. It’s your fault he hurt you.”

Alec still didn’t say anything and kept staring at the ground. After a few moments he heard Magnus sigh. 

“Still...I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to get hurt,” Alec snapped his head up to look at Magnus at that. The warlock was...apologizing?

“What kind of game are you playing, Warlock?”

“Excuse me?” Magnus sounded vaguely offended. 

“Why do you care if I was hurt? You’re a warlock and I’m a shadowhunter. We’re natural enemies. The only way I can see is that you’re playing some kind of game to get me to do something for you,”

It took Magnus a minute or two before he could respond. 

“Believe it or not, we’re not natural enemies Alexander. Certain events occurred in the past which have led to this war, but we weren’t always against each other. In fact, I don’t even dislike shadowhunters. I understand that the clave has told you things to make you hate us.” He paused, maybe for dramatic effect, Alec thought, “But all I want is for this war to end.”

“And you think I’m the one to help you do that?”

“Only time will tell.” Magnus stood up and reached out to hold one of the bars, “I can’t let you out this time. I’m not sure how long our leader will keep you here, but you will be allowed out again eventually. Until then...” Magnus clicked his fingers and some food and drink appeared inside the cell. 

As much as Alec had tried to hide it, Magnus saw the flinch when Alec saw him use his magic. 

“I’m sorry if I startled you, Alexander.” With that, he started walking away.  
“Magnus, wait!” Alec called out, jumping up and moving to the front of his cell. His body didn’t hurt when he moved, someone must have healed him when he was asleep. 

“Yes?” Magnus had taken a few steps back towards him. 

“I’m...” Alec hesitated, this wasn’t easy for him to say, “I’m sorry. For the things I said to you,” He didn’t need to clarify when. 

Magnus looked pleasantly surprised, “You never cease to amaze me,” With a wide and genuine looking smile, Magnus left Alec alone. 

Sitting back down, Alec eyed the food that Magnus had given him. He didn’t want to look at it. Didn’t want to eat something that a warlock had conjured for him, but his stomach was growling and he was sure the food wouldn’t be poisoned. They’d told him enough times that they didn’t mean to kill him. 

All Alec could do was hope that his siblings were looking for him. It didn’t seem like he was going to find an easy way out and he was definitely going to need their help.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the feedback so far,  
> I hope you all enjoy this next chapter!  
> Also, I'm not super active on tumblr, but I'd like to be. So if you want to talk about my fics, malec or anything shadowhunters or in general, you can find me there at malecmarshmallow !  
> Enjoy~~

Simon paced anxiously as he waited for Raphael. The leader of the New York clan would never be on time for any meeting...even one with his boyfriend. 

Simon knew it was a tactic to keep people on edge and unable to doubt Raphael’s superiority and power, but he really wished that the elder didn’t feel the need to go through that with him. It was just annoying really. And if Simon had asked to speak to him privately for...personal reasons, he knew Raphael would have been exactly on time. Possibly even early. 

“Fledgling,” Simon almost groaned at the nickname which he still hadn’t grown out of within the clan since he was the still the newest addition to their ranks, but he was far too relieved that Raphael had finally shown up to speak with him. 

“Raphael,” He couldn’t keep the affection out of his voice as he spoke his lover’s name. 

“I know you met with the shadowhunters. You’d better get on with telling me what they want now,” Raphael’s voice was tinted with annoyance. It was no secret he despised having to deal with shadowhunters so much. Especially when all they usually wanted to do was take, take, take. Use, use, use. 

“Right, well...did you know that Alec was kidnapped by the warlocks?” Raphael pursed his lips and gave Simon a _look_ , “Oh...of course you knew. You know everything that goes on...um... So they want to know if you would have any information about his current location, or how they might go about getting him back?”

“I am not involved in this war,” He answered simply. 

“I know, and I told them you probably wouldn’t help but...there’s nothing you can give them?”

Raphael sighed, “The Lightwood is not in any immediate danger. The warlocks have no intention of hurting or killing him. More likely than not a ransom will come through soon and this will all be over,”

“I’d like to believe that I really would...but Jace felt Alec’s pain through his parabatai bond. They’ve already been hurting him,”

Raphael closed his eyes and let out a longer suffering sigh, mumbling away in Spanish. The only word Simon could distinguish was _idiotas_.

“Then I’m sure the boy did something to deserve it,” He held up a hand to stop Simon from speaking when it looked like he was about to argue, “They wouldn’t hurt him without a reason, I know that Simon. Tell your shadowhunters it will be best just to wait it out. They’ll never find the warlock hideout anyway,”

“But...you know where it is.” It wasn’t a question.

“Did I say that? Some things are dangerous to admit to, Simon. You should know that.” Simon wisely didn’t comment, “Are you going to scamper back to your little shadowhunter friends or remain here?”

“I was thinking I’d stay here, see if you had any free time...” He trailed off and Raphael smirked at him.

“Oh, I’m sure I could free up a little time for you, fledgling.” If Simon wasn’t a vampire, he knew that he would have been blushing all over as he followed Raphael out of the meeting room.

~~~

“I just got off the phone with Simon,” Izzy informed Jace as she reentered the tech room where they had spent the last few hours scouting the database for anything that could be of use, “Raphael’s a no go. He won’t do anything to risk the vampires getting involved,”

“It was a long shot anyway,” Jace replied without looking away from the screen, “We can just hope Clary has better luck with Luke,”

“I’m not so sure, werewolves don’t want to look like they’re involved either, even if their leader is married to a shadowhunter.” And hadn’t that been a surprise. Luke had been a shadowhunter himself once upon a time, but two years after his marriage to Jocelyn he’d been caught in an attack and turned into a werewolf. 

He’d suffered a lot, to start with and had strongly considered ending it, but with a supporting family and strong determination, he’d fought to prove everyone wrong and become the leader of the New York pack. 

“No harm in asking,” Jace looked like he was about to say something else, when they heard the sound of high-heeled shoes heading in their direction.

“That sound like mom to you?” Isabelle asked.

“Indeed it does,” Jace systematically removed the evidence of what they’d been searching before pulling up the map of demon activity in New York. 

“Oh good, you’re both here. I have a mission for you both,” They stood to face her as soldiers should. “Some demons have appeared in Central Park. Not too many, you should be fine by yourselves. Take care of this immediately,”

“Yes, ma’am,” The two wasted no time in gearing up. No matter how badly they wanted to find Alec, they still had to protect the mundanes and keep demons out of their city. The world wasn’t about to stop spinning just because they might want it to. 

~~~

“Ouch, shit!” Izzy exclaimed, grabbing onto her ankle. The last demon had managed to knock her over and by the feel of it, break her ankle. 

“Are you okay?” Jace called, busy checking there were no demons left around. 

Maryse was right, it was something they could easily handle alone. Just three demons who weren’t too powerful. 

“Nothing an Iratze won’t heal, I’m more pissed off than anything.” Izzy grabbed her stele and began to draw the rune onto her skin, barely even wincing as she did so. Happy that all the demons were gone, Jace went to check on her. 

“You sure?”

“Yeah...I guess I’m just so used to Alec looking out for me that I didn’t even notice that last demon. He’s always here for us and now he’s not...” Her voice started to break, “I don’t know what to do,” Izzy looked lost, “We’ve never been apart for this long before. Never. What do I do if we can’t get him back?”

“Hey, hey, don’t think like that,” Jace took on a comforting voice. It wasn’t something he was used to, but it was what Izzy clearly needed right now. 

“I promise we’re going to get him back. I won’t let anything bad happen to him, okay?”

Izzy nodded unhappily. She still wasn’t sure, but she trusted Jace. 

“Come on, let’s get you back to the Institute to get some rest,” Jace helped Izzy to stand and they limped back to their home together. 

The moment they set foot in the Institute, a small blonde bundle of a shadowhunter came barreling at them, crashing into Jace’s legs for a hug. 

“Max!” Jace didn’t have to fake his happy exclamation. It had been far too long since the youngest Lightwood had been back to visit them, “What are you doing here, buddy?” Max pulled away from Jace so he could hug Izzy next. 

“I got in trouble, so Dad had to bring me back here for a while. They took my stele away!” 

“What did you do?” Max hesitated.

“He set fire to the library in the Mumbai Institute.” Came the answer from Robert Lightwood, their father. 

“Max!” Izzy sounded half angry and half amused at her younger brother’s antics. 

“It’s not my fault!” He complained, “The fire rune and the nourishment rune look so similar!”

“Max those runes are nothing like each other!” Jace laughed at him. 

“Whatever. Anyway, can you tell me where Alec is? I want to see him and no one will tell me where he is.” 

Isabelle and Jace’s playful moods instantly went sour and they stared straight at Robert, the accusation clear in their eyes - ‘ _you didn’t tell him?_ ’

“Come on Max, let’s get you to bed. We can talk about this later,” Robert told him.

“I don’t want to go to bed! I want to see Alec!” 

“That’s enough, come on now.” Robert passed Max into the care of Raj, another shadowhunter living in the Institute, who took the young boy to bed. 

“How can you not have told him?”

“What was I supposed to say Isabelle? Sorry Max your brother has been kidnapped and maybe you’ll never see him again?”

“We can’t hide this from him dad. He’ll find out eventually and then it will be ten times worse because he was left in the dark. Although I guess I’m not surprised. I’ll go deal with this, like normal.” Izzy took off after her brother without waiting for anyone to say anything else. 

“Are you going to get angry too?” Robert asked Jace.

“What’s the point? I’m going to report.” Jace too left the entryway and headed towards Maryse’s office. 

He updated Maryse quickly about the success of the mission, which she was pleased about. Before she could dismiss him though, he had to ask about Alec. 

“Maryse...you said you had a team out searching for Alec. Have they found anything?”

“Nothing solid, I’m afraid. They’re doing their best but you know how well warlocks can hide.”

“I want to join them. I need to be searching for Alec too.”

“No. You’re too involved and that makes you reckless. I won’t risk you as well,”

“But-”

“No. You’re dismissed, go get some sleep.”

Jace barely concealed how annoyed he was when he left the office. How could the team have been searching for just over a week now and found absolutely nothing? Jace made up his mind instantly, it was time for him to get more involved in this search whether Maryse liked it or not. This was his parabatai, his brother. He had to get him back. He’d been gone too long already. 

With determination set in his gaze, Jace left the Institute and no one dared to stop him or question where he was going. By the time Maryse knew he had left, he would be far away. He was going to some downworlder clubs. There must be someone who could help him there, or at least someone who he could interrogate.

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

It had only taken two days before the warlock leader had allowed Alec out of his cell. He had expected it to take longer, but he wasn’t complaining. The cell was even more boring than being out in the camp. 

Alec was sat alone in the warlock’s outdoor food area. He briefly wondered what they did if it rained, but scrapped those thoughts pretty quickly. Obviously they would use magic to stop it causing any trouble. 

What he really did wonder about was why so many were here. There were easily hundreds of them. If they really wanted to win the war and destroy the shadowhunters, Alec was positive that they could do it. With such a large force of magic users, there was barely anything stopping them. So why didn’t they? What was stopping them from taking over?

He also wondered if he was the only prisoner here. He hadn’t seen anyone else who wasn’t a warlock and he’d never heard of warlocks taking prisoners before. He couldn’t help but think about how warlock prisoners were treated by shadowhunters and feel guilty. Warlock prisoners were not treated well by any means - and here he was allowed to roam freely and pretty much do whatever he wanted. 

He was starting to find it peaceful, relaxing even. He didn’t particularly have to worry about things. Well, he did, the warlocks could change and decide to kill him at any moment, but he wouldn’t worry about that. At least if he died then he’d be free from them. 

But it was nice there. He couldn’t deny the beauty in all things in the camp and some of the warlocks had even started to smile at him in passing, as if he was starting to become part of their world. 

Were warlocks really as bad as the Clave and his parents made them out to be? Or were they just playing some long winded trick to mess with him? Magnus had suggested that the reasons Alec had been taught for the beginnings of the war were not quite correct. If that was true then what had really happened? Why would the Clave not tell the truth? He needed to know if his whole history was a lie. 

He felt ashamed at doubting his people, but Magnus had planted the seeds and it was clearly working. Alec knew this must be what the warlocks wanted, but he couldn’t help but to play into their hands in this situation. He would find out the truth. 

Before that, though, he needed to clear his head. Finishing his dinner, he cleared his things away and wandered out into the woods to be completely alone. 

He picked up a fallen branch as he walked to use as a walking stick. At least, that was what it would look like to anyone who might be watching him. He always remembered that Magnus told him someone was always watching. Really, he would use it to know if he was about to come into contact with any magical wards. He’d rather a bit of a warning before walking into something headfirst. 

He picked a random direction and set off, trying to calm his mind. He’d been walking for about ten minutes when he became aware of something behind him. Alec kept his pace steady and listened carefully. A branch snapped just behind him, a bit closer than he’d thought. His shadowhunter reflexes kicked in and he skillfully swiveled around, brandishing the branch as a weapon. He just caught sight of a small pink-skinned someone jumping behind a tree. 

Alec relaxed immediately and dropped the branch, “Hi there, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you,” He was hoping that he sounded sincere. He carefully made his way closer to the child, but stopped a small distance away, crouching down so he could match her height. He lifted his hands up to show he was unarmed and kept his pose as non-threatening as possible. 

“What’s your name?” She eyed him warily, still keeping her distance.

“...Jasmine,” The warlock girl mumbled. Alec smiled,

“That’s a beautiful name. How old are you, Jasmine?”

“Twelve,” He continued asking her silly useless questions, until the girl started to get a little more confident. She had taken a few curious steps forward when a group of people came running towards them. 

“Jasmine!” A woman called out, who Alec assumed was the girl’s mother - or adoptive mother anyway, since warlocks were infertile, “Come here darling, stay away from him,” She grabbed Jasmine’s arm before the girl could do anything and pulled her away, “He’s dangerous, you can’t go near him, alright?” 

Alec couldn’t help but feel insulted, he scoffed and couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Do you really think I want to harm a child?”

The warlocks glared at him. 

“You’re a shadowhunter. You’d have us all dead if you had the chance,”

“And you should want me dead and yet here I am. Perhaps we’re not all exactly how we’re made out to be?”

Magnus appeared seemingly out of nowhere and Alec was momentarily distracted by the light he brought with him...in the form of copious amounts of glitter. It was almost blinding. And wonderful. Magnus looked flawlessly amazing as per usual. 

“Alright everyone, let’s calm down shall we?” The other warlocks turned their glares to him. 

“He could have hurt her Magnus! Why do you keep defending this boy?”

“He didn’t hurt her though, did he? And really, it didn’t look like that was his goal in this whole situation. Take Jasmine home.” The last sounded like an order. 

The girl’s mother huffed, taking her daughter’s hand and leading her away. Soon it was just Alec and Magnus alone. 

“You do know how to attract trouble, don’t you Alexander?” Magnus sounded highly amused. 

“I’m glad this is so funny to you. You know I wouldn’t hurt-”

“I know,” Magnus became serious, “I know you wouldn’t. You may be a shadowhunter but I can see your morals. You haven’t tried to harm any of us - except for spitting in someone’s face - and I know you couldn’t harm a child, no matter what they were,”

For some reason, Alec felt happy that Magnus had this good opinion of him. He shouldn’t care, but he did. He needed someone to know he wasn’t a cold hearted killer and he was happy that that person was Magnus.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> I'm sorry about the slightly longer wait for this chapter but I was ill and didn't feel like writing much. Then there's the fact that I hated this chapter a lot. It's gone through many different changes and rewrites until it reached this final form!  
> I hope you like it! (comments, kudos and bookmarks mean the world to me! Thank you!)  
> ~~

Tessa and Catarina sat together and watched as a group of warlocks hurried into the forest, after the small child and then also noticing when Magnus hurried after them a few moments later. 

“What is Magnus’ plan, do you think?” Catarina questioned Tessa. The other woman seemed to contemplate for a moment.

“I’m not sure, but knowing Magnus it’s probably going to lead to trouble.”

“Trouble? Talking about our High Warlock of Brooklyn friend?” Ragnor, a green-skinned warlock with horns jumped into their conversation, sitting at the table with them. 

“Who else?” Catarina smiled, fondly. Their friend was a pain sometimes but they still loved him dearly. 

“What do you think he sees in that shadowhunter?” He asked. 

“I don’t know. He’s much too involved in this though. He’s either in love with the boy or has some very big plans that he isn’t sharing.” Tessa replied. Ragnor scowled.

“Well personally I’m hoping for the second option. No good can come from a shadowhunter and Magnus has been hurt enough in his life,”

“Don’t let him hear you say that! He’ll think you actually care about him,” Ragnor huffed at Tessa and looked back out across the glade, seeing the warlocks hurrying back out of the forest with their child in tow. Not one of the small group missed the that fact that Magnus didn’t return with them.

“He knows that anyway, no matter how hard I try to pretend otherwise,”

“Let’s not worry about Magnus now. No matter what he plans for the boy, he’ll let us know when it’s time,” Catarina said.

~~~

Magnus returned to camp alone about an hour later, oblivious to the conversations his closest friends had been having about him. He headed in their direction, and sat in the free seat beside Tessa. 

“And how are my three favourite people?”

“We were fine until you showed up,” Ragnor said without heat. Magnus dramatically clutched at his heart.

“You do wound me so, Ragnor.” The two women rolled their eyes fondly at the exchange. 

“So what happened with the shadowhunter?” Catarina asked carefully. 

“Nothing. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone,”

“So why were you gone for so long?” Ragnor asked bluntly and Tessa kicked him hard under the table. 

“We just got caught up talking,”

“Really? Chit-chat with a shadowhunter? Our hostage?”

“Ragnor he’s-” Magnus was interrupted by the appearance of another warlock dropping his hand on Magnus’ shoulder to announce his arrival. 

Magnus glanced up into the purple eyes of Malcolm Fade, the High Warlock of Los Angeles. 

“Magnus, my good friend. You are summoned. Ragnor, you too.”

“Why?”

“There’s a meeting of the High Warlocks in preparation for the ransom delivery,”

“Ah, of course. Well we’d better not keep anyone waiting, right Ragnor?”

Ragnor just grumbled to himself as they stood from the table, promising to see Catarina and Tessa again later and following Malcolm towards the strategy tent where all the important meetings where held. 

“Is our new leader going to be in attendance?” Magnus asked Malcolm, just before they entered the tent.

“I don’t believe so,” Magnus couldn’t help the relief that flashed through him at the news. 

Before the war, there was no warlock leader. There hadn’t been a need for one. The High Warlocks kept everything in their areas in check, but really most warlocks just kept to themselves. 

After the war began and warlocks needed to be put into hiding and organized, the need for a leader was apparent. It had fallen to a warlock named Isaac Laquedem, one of the oldest of their kind. He was strong and capable, a good leader. It was he who had created this camp and formed the first protective wards to keep his people safe.

He had a good head for strategy and a good heart, so it was him who sent down the order that shadowhunters were not to be killed unless absolutely necessary. It was an order that most warlocks weren’t opposed to. They knew how misguided a majority of the shadowhunters were and whilst their superiority complex was rather annoying, as long as they mostly left warlocks to their own devices, it didn’t really matter so much. 

Isaac wanted to end the war without having to resort to too much violence, something that Magnus was 100% behind. 

But one year ago, Isaac had left. No one knew why or what had happened, there was just a note left in his tent advising that his ‘trusted friend and adviser’, Nathaniel Hawk, was to be left in charge in his absence. 

Magnus didn’t trust him one bit. 

Under Nathaniel’s leadership there had been more warlocks sent out and more demons summoned to attack the shadowhunters. Magnus had been trying to keep an eye on him as best he could but it was a tough thing to do. 

Taking Alec had been a big risk, but thankfully so far Nathaniel had deferred to Magnus’ plan of keeping Alec unharmed, but he couldn’t be sure it would stay that way. The sooner he got the next part of his plan moving the better. He really didn’t want anything bad happening to the shadowhunter. 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

“This is crazy, where the hell is he?!” Izzy shouted after hanging up her phone for what felt like the thousandth time. She’d called Jace and left so many messages but he still hadn’t picked up. He’d been missing for two days now and Clary and Izzy were both frantic with worry. 

After dropping her phone down on her bed, she crossed the room to better listen to Clary’s conversation with Luke. He hadn’t been any help on the Alec front, as with the vampires, he couldn’t risk his pack getting involved. But as for Jace, who to their knowledge hadn’t been kidnapped by warlocks, he was happy to help. He had a few of his wolves out searching for news.

“You really don’t have any new information?” Clary was asking. 

“Have you checked- okay. No, I understand. Talk to you later, Luke.” Clary hung up looking dejected and threw her phone to join Izzy’s on the bed. 

“So he hasn’t heard anything about Jace either, huh?”

Clary tried to hold back tears, “Nothing. No one has seen or heard from him. Where could he have gone? Why didn’t he tell us?”

“Do you think the warlocks...”

“No. At least I don’t think so. They already have Alec, why would they need Jace too?”

“Oh god what are we going to do? I can’t deal with two of my brothers missing and another refusing to eat or leave his room,” Max hadn’t dealt well with the news that Alec had been kidnapped. He wouldn’t speak to anyone, not even Izzy. She sat down on the edge of her bed, head in her hands. 

Clary sat beside her and gently draped an arm around her shoulders. 

“I don’t know what to do either. With Maryse keeping us locked up here I’m not sure there’s anything we can do except wait.” It was the most pessimistic Isabelle had heard Clary be in a long time. They just felt like they were continually spiraling downwards with no light in the dark to lead them back up. 

They weren’t sure how long they sat there together, but at some point they both lay down and fell asleep.

~~~

They awoke to an alarm sounding throughout the whole Institute. 

“What’s going on?” Clary asked, worriedly.

“I don’t know. Come on, let’s go find out.” Grabbing their phones they quickly left the room and jogged to the main operation rooms of the Institute. 

Maryse was already there, looking stern and serious as always. 

“Ah, nice of you two to join us.”

“What’s going on?” Isabelle repeated Clary’s question. 

“There’s been a sudden increase in demon activity. We have to deal with this immediately. I’m sending a team out to neutralize the threat and you will lead them. You’re leaving in ten minutes.”

Without needing more words, Isabelle and Clary hurried to gear up and eight minutes later they joined one of largest groups of shadowhunters that had been sent out for a long time. There must have been fifteen of them altogether. 

Neither of them were all that familiar with the others as most shadowhunters didn’t remain in one Institute for long, they were moved as needed. Only the families of Heads of Institute stayed in one place. 

The demons were down near the docks, so they all headed that way as quickly and silently as they could. 

Their sensors were going mad with demon energy the closer they got and they all prepared themselves, getting into position surrounding the demons.

Izzy was about to give the signal to attack when suddenly all the demons just disappeared. 

“What the fuck?” Izzy felt panic shoot through her. Something wasn’t right, was this a trap? Where did the demons come from and how did they disappear? 

Before anyone could really relax, portals began opening up all around them and warlocks began appearing. The only reason a fight didn’t break out immediately was because the warlocks were all carrying blue flags in their hands. The colour of the old Accords, the colour of a truce. 

Everyone looked to Isabelle, as she had the most seniority within the group. Being her usual confident self, she stepped forward to face the warlocks, her whip still ready to be used at any second within her hands. 

She knew her mother would disregard their flags of truce and order the attack, but taking in her surroundings she knew there were more warlocks than shadowhunters so it wouldn’t be smart to attack. And if she could get any information about her brother she was going to take that opportunity.

“So who’s in charge here?” Izzy was happy her voice sounded more confident than she really felt. 

A warlock stepped forward to face her. She had to admit, this warlock had an amazing sense of style. 

“Hello, my dear. What striking looks you have, would happen to be related to Alexander?”

Her eyes flashed at the mention of her brother, “What have you done to Alec? Where is he?”

“Calm down, your brother is fine,” Izzy cracked her whip threateningly and was only a little annoyed when the warlock didn’t flinch. 

“Who are you?”

“My name is Magnus Bane. We’re here to discuss the return of your dear Alexander.”

“I’m listening,”

“Give us back the warlocks that are currently being held captive and agree to begin peaceful negotiations to the ending of this war. Then we will return Alec Lightwood to you.”

“I cannot accept or refuse your offer,”

“We understand. We will give you one week to give an answer,” Magnus threw something which Isabelle caught on reflex. Glancing down she saw it was a whistle, “When you’re ready, blow on it and we’ll return here within one hour, acceptable?”

Isabelle nodded in answer. 

“Oh, and there will be a cease fire until a decision has been made. If any shadowhunter should attack during this time we will not hesitate to retaliate,” The threat against her brother hung heavy in the air. 

The warlock bowed mockingly towards the shadowhunters and he snapped his fingers. The warlocks took their leave back through the portals. In a daze, Isabelle turned around to see everyone else in a similar state of shock. Some were looking sympathetically at Isabelle and even though she knew, she didn’t want to think about the reason why.

“We need to report back to the Institute,” She said at last and began walking to lead them back. Clary came to stand at her side. 

“Are you okay?” She asked quietly. 

“They’re never going to accept the terms,” Izzy whispered back and Clary could see that she was close to tears, “The warlocks are crazy to think that Alec is worth enough to the Clave for all that,” 

“You don’t know that, Iz. Maybe it will be okay,” Isabelle just shook her head and they continued back the rest of the way in silence. 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Upon portaling back to the warlock camp, Magnus felt uneasy. They’d delivered the ransom fine, but he was still worried about the shadowhunters rejecting the terms. 

He’d argued that it was too much to ask for in return for just one soldier - albeit a powerful and important one - but the others had outvoted him in that regard. If the shadowhunters refused the offer, Magnus was sure that Nathaniel would have Alec killed. It shouldn’t matter so much, the boy was just supposed to be a means to stop the war. But the thought of never seeing or speaking to Alec ever again filled him with a pain that he didn’t quite understand. 

Magnus began to head towards Alec’s tent, when a hand on his arm stopped him. 

“Magnus, I need to talk to you,” He willingly followed his green-skinned friend to somewhere more private. 

“What seems to be the problem my dear little cabbage?”

“Be serious Magnus. What are your plans for the Lightwood boy? What do you feel for him?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play stupid Magnus. Why are you so invested in this boy?”

“I’m not. He-I believe he can held end this war,”

“That’s all? You’re not attracted to him at all?”

“I...” Magnus trailed off, not able to lie to one of his oldest friends, “I don’t know, okay?”

Ragnor sighed irritably, “Is that really why you brought him here, Magnus? You just saw a cute boy with blue eyes and decided you didn’t want him dead?”

“It’s not like that,”

“So you won’t be upset if this ransom doesn’t work and we kill him?” Magnus’ silence was all the answer that Ragnor needed, “You can’t let your heart get involved, Magnus. Try to use him to end the war, but don’t put your heart on the line for this boy. Promise me,”

“I...I can’t promise that,”

“You’re a bigger idiot than I thought Bane. He will never choose you. Never. You haven’t opened your heart since-”

“I know,” Magnus cut in, sounding both angry and dejected at the same time. He didn’t want to remember the past. Ragnor deflated a little and rested a hand on Magnus’ shoulder.

“So promise me that you’ll be careful, at least.”

“I promise,” Ragnor still seemed unhappy, but he nodded accepting Magnus’ response and walked away. Magnus knew his friend was just trying to look out for him and even worse he knew that Ragnor was right. Magnus shouldn’t have feelings of any kind for Alec Lightwood, they were two sides of the war. It could never work. But he couldn’t help but feel a tug in his chest when he thought about the young shadowhunter and it was that tug which led him to go off in search of him again. It was time they talked about Alec’s decidedly fabulous younger sister.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> Here's an early chapter for you! After the horrible times I went through with chapter 4 I've been on a roll!  
> I hope you guys enjoy it and thank you so much for you comments and kudos!  
> ~~~

Upon returning to the Institute the first thing that Clary noticed was Jace stood beside Maryse and Robert. 

“Jace!” She yelled and ran to him, grateful when he opened his arms and held her close. He was back! Isabelle was right behind her, not quite so happy to see her brother. 

As soon as he released Clary, Isabelle fixed him with a cold glare and slapped him hard across the face. He staggered slightly and held onto his cheek. 

“Where the hell have you been?!” She shouted, “Do you have any idea what it’s been like for us? You couldn’t call? Tell us you were leaving? Nothing?” 

“Iz...I’m-”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me Jace Wayland. If you were really sorry you wouldn’t have disappeared! Do you know what it’s like to have two missing brothers?”

“Isabelle! Calm yourself immediately,” Maryse put a stop to her, “Jace - go to the library and I will meet you there shortly to discuss your...absence.” Jace nodded and left the room, Clary squeezing his arm a little in reassurance as he passed her. 

“Now, Isabelle a report. None of you look particularly battle worn.” Maryse and Robert led Clary and Isabelle to their office. Once the door was closed, Isabelle began her recount of all the events of the warlocks’ ransom. 

“I see,” Maryse said a few moments after Isabelle finished, “May I see the whistle?” It was phrased as a question but Isabelle knew it was an order. For some reason, she was hesitant to hand it over, holding it tightly in her fist.

“Now Isabelle,” Maryse held out her hand impatiently. With little choice, Isabelle dropped the whistle into her mother’s hand. The Head of Institute critiqued the whistle, looking at it from all angles and rolling it between her fingers. 

“Robert, keep this hidden and locked away. It could contain more powers that what has been told,” 

“Of course,” Robert the ever dutiful husband took the whistle and left the room. 

“So...what are we going to do now?” Clary questioned. 

“I will inform the Clave of your report of this mission. They will take it from there,”

“You don’t seem overly concerned considering it’s to do with the return of your son,” 

“You know as well as I do that the Clave will never negotiate with warlocks. Alec’s fate was set the moment he was taken,”

“How can you say that?” Maryse didn’t seem overly concerned with the small red-head getting angry at her. She calmly moved some files around her desk as if she was tidying even though it was already immaculate. 

“These things happen in the line of duty. Alec failed in his duty and now must face the consequences,” Clary made a movement as if she were going to jump over the desk and hit Maryse herself, but Izzy grabbed her arm to stop her.

“Let’s go Clary,” Izzy said quietly, “The Clave will take it from here,” Maryse nodded once at her daughter, with a small show of approval at her words. 

“Go straight to your rooms and do not look for Jace, I will be dealing with him first,”

“Yes mother,” Clary hoped she was the only one who noticed how grit Izzy’s teeth were when she spoke. Maryse still seemed unconcerned so Clary guessed she was still oblivious to how obviously angry Isabelle was. 

The girls walked in silence to Izzy’s bedroom and as soon as they were inside and the door had closed Izzy let out a yell and punched a hole through her bedroom wall. 

“How dare she?!” She hit the wall again, “How dare she give up on Alec?!” Clary doesn’t try to calm her, knowing that this was what Izzy needed right now. She would calm herself down when she was ready. Izzy screamed again and dropped down to the floor, sitting with her knees up and her back against the wall. 

“This is it, Clary. I’m done. Maryse won’t let us out to look - I’m going rogue. I don’t care anymore, I just have to find Alec,” Clary slipped off the bed to kneel in front of her.

“You know I’m with you. And Jace will be too, we just have to be smart about this. We’re going to need more help, we can’t go yet,”

“Who did you have in mind exactly?”

“We’re going to have to make better use of the downworld contacts we have - Raphael and Luke for a start. Force them to help us. You could go to the Seelies, if you ask the right questions I’m sure you can learn something,” Izzy hummed noncommittally, “We can do this, Izzy. As soon as we get Jace back - and yell at him some more - we’re going to start getting everything ready, okay?”

Isabelle looked up into Clary’s face, seeing the determination in her friend who was willing to risk her own position as a shadowhunter, perhaps even her life to help find her brother. 

“You don’t have to do this for me,”

“Yes I do, for you and for Jace. You both mean the world to me,” Isabelle pulled Clary in for a hug and whispered a quiet ‘thank you’ into her hair

~~~

It was early, for Simon. Sunset was still about ten minutes away, he knew. He could feel it, like an extra sense for vampires. He wasn’t sure why he’d woken early, but he wasn’t complaining. Raphael was still asleep next to him in the large bed that they had been sharing in the Hotel Dumort. Usually, Raphael was the first awake as he had lots of business to attend to and not so much time to deal with it. 

Simon was gazing down at his lover, fascinated by how different Raphael looked when he was asleep. Really he looked very dead, but also peaceful. He never looked peaceful when he was awake, always angry or annoyed or stressed out. It was a nice change. 

He reached out a hand to stroke the porcelain smooth skin of Raphael’s face, and was instantly greeted with Raphael’s eyes as he woke. They held each others gaze for a moment, Simon smiling softly, before Raphael began to fidget and brought his hands to his eyes.

“Why are you awake, fledgling? It’s early yet,”

“I know, I just woke up,”

“So you had to wake me, too?”

“I’m sorry,” Simon said, insincerely. Raphael was always grumpy if he was woken early. 

“Are you okay?” Raphael asked, in a rare moment of showing how much he actually cared about Simon. He must have still been in those groggy moments between sleep and wakefulness, Simon thought.

“Yup, think so,”

“Good,” Raphael wrapped his arm around Simon’s waist and pulled them together tightly, “So you can go back to sleep,” Simon tried, his head resting on Raphael’s chest, where he should have been able to hear a heartbeat if there was one.

He was just drifting back to sleep when his phone started to ring. Raphael groaned his displeasure loudly. 

“Deal with that noise _now _, fledgling. Don’t make me kick you out,” Simon scrambled to get out of Raphael’s embrace and back to the other side of the bed, where his phone was lying on the table. He was going to cancel the call, but a quick glance at the screen showed it was Clary. He hadn’t spoken to her for almost a week now and he wanted to.__

__With his quick vampire movements, he slid out of the bedroom and into the hallway, answering his phone at the same time, “Hey Clary, great to hear from you! What’s up?”_ _

__He still had his phone attached to his ear fifteen minutes later when he reentered his bedroom. Thankfully, Raphael was already awake and staring at him. He sighed and stood up._ _

__“And what do the Angels want from me now?” Simon told Clary to wait and lowered his phone, covering the mouthpiece._ _

__“A meeting. It sounds really important, Raph.” Raphael squinted his eyes at the nickname but otherwise didn’t comment._ _

__“Isn’t it always?”_ _

__“Raph, from the sounds of it, this is completely off the books, Clary and Izzy are acting alone. Possibly disobeying orders too,” Raphael’s eyebrows rose. Well, apparently there were some things in this world that could still surprise him._ _

__“They don’t want a formal meeting as shadowhunters, more like a...chat? I guess?” This was interesting, perhaps just interesting enough to humour them for the time being._ _

__“Alright, set it up. Tomorrow night at sunset. Tell them to be stealthy as possible in their arrival, I don’t need all manner of downworlders knowing that they’ll be here,”_ _

__Simon nodded and relayed the information to Clary who was more than thankful and promised Raphael that they would owe him one. Another surprise._ _

__He was intrigued about what they could possibly want from him now. Nevertheless, until then he had much more important things to do, namely the boy stood in front of him._ _

__~~~_ _

__A little after midnight Jace joined Clary and Izzy, who had cheered up now that she and Clary had made some plans of their own._ _

__“So, mom finally let you go then?” He shook his head and sat down on the chair in front of Isabelle’s vanity table._ _

__“Not willingly. I think she could have kept going but Robert made her stop,”_ _

__“Where were you?” Clary asked, not keeping the hurt and worry out of her voice._ _

__“I was out looking for information. I was trying to find something, _anything_ about Alec. I thought I had a good lead and I chased it, but...it didn’t work out,” He looked so defeated that the girls couldn’t find it in them to be angry with him._ _

__“At least you tried,” Izzy comforted, “That’s more than anyone else here - oh!” She stood up suddenly in shock, “Did they tell you about the ransom?”_ _

__Jace looked confused, “What ransom?”_ _

__“Well shit,” Was all Jace could say about it after Izzy had explained about the ransom once more._ _

__“Don’t worry, we have a plan.”_ _

__~~~_ _

__The following day saw Isabelle, Jace and Clary setting the first parts of their plan into motion. Isabelle had cornered Raj and gotten him to agree to switch off the cameras for a few minutes before sunset. Raj had always admired Alec and even had a crush on him. Raj wasn’t happy about the outcome of all of this either, so Izzy knew they could count on his help no matter what. She felt a little bad using him for his feelings, but not bad enough to not do it. This was all for her brother after all._ _

__When the time came, Raj did them one better. The cameras were gone and all the alarms sounded at once. As he blended in with the panic of people trying to figure out what to do, the three young shadowhunters slipped unnoticed out the back of the Institute._ _

__Once they were far enough away, they split up. Isabelle had a date with Meliorn, a Seelie Knight and Jace and Clary were going to talk to the vampires. They told each other to be careful and were off to their destinations._ _

__Clary and Jace were extra careful as promised as they approached the Dumort. They’d doubled back on themselves a few times and went in a few circles to make sure no one was following or watching them and once they were sure it was clear, they snuck around the back of the hotel and climbed up to the roof. The second the sun was down the door opened and they were faced with-_ _

__“Simon!” Clary couldn’t stop a smile from forming on her face and she hugged her friend._ _

__“Hey guys,” He greeted, “Raphael is waiting for you, which is unusual as it is. Let’s not keep him waiting long, right?”_ _

__“No, of course. Lead the way,” Jace just rolled his eyes as they followed Simon into the hotel. He never did like that guy much. It could be that he knew Simon used to have a crush on Clary and really that shouldn’t bother him anymore. He’d never admit it to anyone, but it did. It wasn’t like he was worried Clary was going to leave him, but hey, even super confident and sexy shadowhunters could be insecure on the inside sometimes._ _

__Simon led them deep into the hotel and finally into one of the meeting rooms. It was large and cleaned up well so was obviously in regular use. All the chairs were lined with gold._ _

__“Well, well, well. If it isn’t two of my least favourite shadowhunters,” Raphael was lounging casually in a chair with his feet reclined up onto the table, a glass of deep red blood in his hand which he sipped at. Jace and Clary for once chose wisely not to say anything and sat down when Raphael indicated that they could. Simon lingered by the door behind them._ _

__“Simon wasn’t very clear yesterday, to what do I owe the utmost pleasure of your company?”_ _

__“I take it you know about the ransom the warlocks have given for Alec?” Jace began._ _

__“Naturally,”_ _

__“Is it real?”_ _

__“You think they’re tricking you?”_ _

__“It’s possible,” Raphael took another leisurely sip of blood before replying._ _

__“No, it’s not possible. Warlocks are tricksters by nature yes, but this is serious. When it comes to war they are not likely to trick you with a ransom. They want and end to this war before it gets any worse,”_ _

__“How do you know that?”_ _

__“Well...let’s just say I have my ways. My advice to you would be to meet with the warlocks under the truce, whether your leaders want to accept the ransom or not. See what more they have to say, perhaps make a start to the negotiations.”_ _

__“Maryse would never agree to that,”_ _

__“No, but perhaps someone from higher up the ladder would. You don’t know anyone with a good amount of influence?”_ _

__Jace considered for a moment, “Potentially,” He wasn’t going to give up who, that was more information than the vampire needed._ _

__“There you go,”_ _

__“And you can’t give us any more information about Alec?” Jace wasn’t exactly going to pass up an opportunity to try._ _

__“Afraid not. Just know that for now he’s perfectly fine. Maybe he’s even enjoying himself,”_ _

__“Enjoying himself? Why would you think he’s-”_ _

__“Don’t think about it too hard shadowhunter. I’ve helped all I can, I think it would be best if you went back to your Institute.”_ _

__“Thank you,” Clary said, when it became apparent that Jace had forgotten and was about to leave, “We really appreciate you speaking with us,”_ _

__“Let’s try not to make it a habit, hmm?” Clary said a quick goodbye to Simon and her and Jace were on their way back to the Institute. Jace had his phone out scrolling through his contacts._ _

__“Who are you going to call?”_ _

__“Lydia Branwell,” Clary vaguely remembered Lydia. She had been at the Institute when Clary had first arrived for a mission. Her first impression had been that Lydia was strong-willed and independent, something she had found was completely true. Lydia was also a powerful member within the Clave and had built some strong relationships with the Lightwood siblings during her short stay in New York._ _

__“Do you really think she can help?”_ _

__“If she agrees with us, then I know she’ll help,” Clary tuned out as Jace began talking on the phone. She knew he would fill her in with the important information afterwards, so she kept an eye out for any threats or people who could be following them._ _

__They met with Izzy just before they reached the Institute._ _

__“Good timing, how did it go?”_ _

__“Meliorn wasn’t much help.”_ _

__“So what took you so long?” Izzy smirked and that was when Clary noticed her dress._ _

__“Oh - Iz you’re covered in fairy dust! Really? Was now the best time?”_ _

__“Hey, if you weren’t dating Jace I’m sure you’d understand,” Izzy’s eyes sparkled as she looked down to wipe away the dust. Happy that she was in a good mood for once, even with everything going on, Jace and Clary didn’t question her further._ _

__Trying to be quiet, the three returned to the back of the Institute and quietly opened the door. Their attempts at being quiet were all for nothing when they found Maryse stood in front of them with her arms crossed and a look of pure rage on her face._ _

___~~~_  
~~~  
~~~ 

__Alec was sat alone in a small garden which was made as a place for the warlocks to relax in. It was beautiful and calm which Alec was greatly enjoying. He had his legs up curled into himself on a wooden bench which was far more comfortable than it looked. He was reading one of the books that Magnus had given him a few days ago to keep himself entertained._ _

__The book wasn’t great, a mundane book about the future and science fiction things that Alec didn’t really have an interest in, but his boredom was such that he found himself getting drawn into the story and even wanting to know what happened next._ _

__He hadn’t been bothered by anyone for at least three days, since Magnus had gone to speak with him about Isabelle. It felt strange, knowing that Magnus and his sister had met and there hadn’t been a fight. He didn’t know the circumstances of their meeting, apparently Magnus couldn’t tell him yet, but it felt nice to be able to talk about something from home. He didn’t give away any important things about his sister - he wasn’t that stupid, but he was happy to talk about the little things._ _

__Since then, Magnus and the High Warlocks had been locked up in different meetings and Alec just really wanted to know what was going on. Surely he had the right considering most of it was probably about him? He did notice that the warlocks around him were chattering a little excitedly and their had been more gazes in his direction which he had been trying to ignore. Something was happening and he just really wished he knew what it was._ _

__He was distracted now. With a sigh he marked his place in the book and stretched his arms up, and looked around the garden again, breathing in the scent of the flowers. It was then that he noticed the little pink-skinned warlock, Jasmine, sitting with her mother opposite him. Her mother was watching as the girl played with a toy doll._ _

__Alec couldn’t help but smile. He’d seen Jasmine around a lot since the time in the forest and she always had her curious eyes on him. When she looked up and saw Alec she smiled too and waved at him. Cautiously Alec gave a small wave back, glancing over at the girls mother. She didn’t look happy, but made no move to say anything or take her daughter away. Alec counted it as a win. He was about to stand up to leave, dropping his legs to the ground when he felt someone drop onto the bench next to him._ _

__His heart skipped a beat when he saw Magnus. He didn’t really expect it to be anyone else, but he couldn’t deny he was happy to see the other man again._ _

__“Hello Alexander, I do hope I’m not interrupting you?” Alec shook his head, not trusting his voice at that moment. He didn’t want to sound as breathless as he felt. He felt a flutter in his chest when Magnus smiled brightly at him. “I have some news for you,”_ _

__That really caught Alec’s attention, “Oh?”_ _

__“When I met your sister a few days ago, it was under a truce to deliver a ransom for you,”_ _

__“What did you ask for?” Alec couldn’t help but laugh when Magnus told him, drawing the attention of the other warlocks close by._ _

__“Seriously? There’s no chance, I’m not that important,”_ _

__“To be completely honest with you Alexander,” Alec’s heart skipped again, “I’m not that optimistic about the results either, but you shouldn’t talk yourself down. We all know how important you are,”_ _

__Alec finally stopped laughing and became serious, “What’s going to happen to me when they reject the ransom?” Magnus looked down, unable to hold Alec’s gaze._ _

__“I don’t know,” He replied, truthfully, “Whatever it is I probably won’t have any say in it, but I can promise I’ll do my best to keep you...safe,”_ _

__Alec shook his head, “You don’t have to do that Magnus. I shouldn’t be alive now anyway. Perhaps it will be better to stop waiting for it. Because I am, I’m just here alone waiting for the moment you all decide it’s time to kill me,”_ _

__“Alec-”_ _

__“No Magnus, it’s okay. I’m only alive now because of you and I guess I’m grateful for that. But I’m not under any illusions that it’s going to stay that way. I know I’m not going home,”_ _

__“But your mother-”_ _

__“My mother cares only about the reputation of the Lightwood name. I ruined that when I got caught. She won’t try to find me. My sister and Jace might, but I don’t think they’re going to find this place. Not when you’ve been so well hidden for hundreds of years,”_ _

__For the first time in Magnus didn’t even know how long, he was speechless. What could he say? Inside he was worried that Alec was right about all this and he didn’t want to believe it. He hadn’t known the shadowhunter for very long but couldn’t imagine a world without him in it. Couldn’t imagine a world where he couldn’t look into those beautiful blue eyes..._ _

__Magnus had unconsciously reached out to grasp Alec’s hand and he barely felt a hint of a squeeze in return when a loud whistle sound resounded throughout the whole camp._ _

__“What’s that?”_ _

__“The whistle. The shadowhunters have agreed to meet under a truce,” Their eyes met and neither man was willing to admit their feelings on this matter. It was early, so much earlier than the deadline. That couldn’t be a good sign._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr :) - malecmarshmallow


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! New chapter for you guys to enjoy!  
> Please note the new tag...there's some character death in this one. It's not mentioned much but it's still there...  
> I hope you like this one!  
> ~~~

Loud shouting jerked Alec awake. He’d been napping while waiting for Magnus to return with news from the meeting with the shadowhunters. He’d tried to tell Magnus not to go, something didn’t feel right, but the warlock had just brushed him off and left to meet with the other High Warlocks. What was going on now? Why could Alec feel a pain building in his chest? The shouting put his entire body immediately on alert and he hurried out of his tent as fast as he could. 

Outside appeared to be chaos. There were portals flaring up and disappearing just as quickly, warlocks were running, he could hear some of them screaming out in pain. He saw more than one of them stumbling around or lying on the floor, blood staining their skin. Some of them were definitely not moving... What on earth had - _oh no_. That was why the shadowhunters had contacted the warlocks so quickly. They never had any intention of accepting the ransom terms, which meant they used the meeting as an opportunity to take out as many warlocks as they could. Why hadn’t Alec realized that would be their plan before?

Oh god, where was Magnus? 

Alec tried to search through the crowd of people but it was difficult, everything was a blur. He didn’t want to get in the way so he stuck to the outskirts, trying his best to spot the familiar build of Magnus Bane. 

Why was he so worried? Magnus was powerful, of course he was fine, right? And even if not, did it really matter? He was the warlock responsible for Alec’s capture. What should Alec care if he wasn’t okay? But he did. No matter what the reason why - Alec didn’t want to think about that - he really did care. He needed to know Magnus was okay. 

Seconds felt like minutes - hours even as he kept searching. Why couldn’t he see him? Suddenly, another portal burst into life and with it came a scream of pure anguish. He knew instantly who it came from. 

Pushing his way through the warlocks, Alec finally saw Magnus. He was covered in blood, tears streaming down his face as he crouched over the still body of another warlock. A warlock Alec recognized as being good friends with Magnus and another High Warlock. Ragnor Fell. 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Jace, Isabelle and Clary were lucky that they weren’t in a holding cell. Maryse had been absolutely _furious_ when she’d caught them returning and had interrogated them fully about where they had been before sending them to be locked into Isabelle’s bedroom, complete with guards at the door so they couldn’t get out if they wanted to. At least they were still together and hadn’t been split up. That was something at least. 

Jace and Izzy had tried to reason with Maryse, to make her see sense. They needed to meet with the warlocks to better discuss terms and the return of Alec. Their mother had flat out refused. They weren’t particularly surprised, but it was still a blow that they keenly felt. Jace could only hope that Lydia was having more luck on her end of things. 

It had been almost a whole day since they’d first been manhandled into the room and they hadn’t heard anything from anyone except for when their guards had thrown a bag of take out food at them for dinner, but even they refused to answer any questions. What could the Clave and Maryse be planning? 

The three had been lounging in the room, bored out of their minds when Jace’s phone began to ring, causing each of them to jump at the sudden noise. 

“It’s Raphael,” Jace told them, before answering the call, “Hi Raph-”

_“What the hell did you do, shadowhunter?”_ Came the voice of a very distraught and angry vampire. Confused, Jace quickly put Raphael on speakerphone so the girls could listen in to the conversation as well. 

“What are you talking about?”

_“Don’t play stupid with me, boy. Was this your plan all along?”_

“Raphael, we don’t have any idea what you’re-” Clary started, but got cut off.

_“Why did you break the cease fire rules?”_ Raphael hissed through the phone. The three shadowhunters froze and stared at each other in shock. What had Maryse done?

“Wait, we don’t know anything about that. We got caught coming back from meeting you, we’ve been locked up since, what the hell happened?” Clary explained quickly, before Raphael could jump to even worse conclusions about them. 

Raphael was silent for a moment, _“You really have no idea?”_ He still sounded angry, but a little less than before. 

“Please Raphael, tell us what happened,” Izzy pleaded with him. They heard him sigh. 

_“It seems your mother and the Clave had some very different ideas than you about what to do with the ransom. They made the call and when the warlocks arrived they attacked.”_ Everyone was silent. They didn’t know what to say. What could they say? 

_“It wouldn’t have been so bad, you know as well as I that warlocks are pretty good at defending themselves,”_ Raphael continued finally, _“But the shadowhunters had something that I’m hoping you had no prior knowledge about, otherwise I’ll kill you myself,”_

“What was it?” Clary asked quietly. 

_“I’m not entirely sure. There was a device to stop warlock magic. They were completely defenseless, it was a massacre. Please don’t contact me again any time soon.”_ Raphael hung up, leaving Izzy, Jace and Clary staring at each other in shock. They’d had no idea that any such device was even being worked on, let alone complete. 

It was at that point that everything hit Izzy at once. Tears welled up in her eyes and she cried. And cried. Falling in on herself she couldn’t bare to look at the others. Her brother was going to die and there was nothing that she could do to stop it. 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Alec was pacing outside the infirmary. He couldn’t stay still, there was activity all around him as injured warlocks were being healed. Magnus had been dragged away into a private room after he’d finally passed out from his injuries over his friend’s green-skinned body. 

He needed to know if Magnus was okay. He didn’t really think that anyone would tell him, but he had to stay close by just in case. He was shaking. What was taking so long? Surely magic healing didn’t take as long as regular healing? 

He breathed out a sigh and ran his hands through his hair again, dropping down into a nearby chair. His legs started to bounce and with an annoyed sigh he stood back up and resumed pacing. 

“Alec?” Alec jumped and turned to find himself face to face with a slightly nervous looking blue-skinned warlock. He recognized her as the one who had taken Magnus to the infirmary. 

“Is Magnus okay?” Alec asked quickly. 

“He’s...” She hesitated for a moment, “Physically he’ll be fine.” _He must be really upset about his friend,_ Alec thought. “Anyway...he’s awake now and I know you want to see him. He asked for you too,”

“So I can...” The female warlock nodded and gestured for him to follow her. She silently led him through a few corridors and then knocked on a door before carefully opening it. 

“Magnus? I brought Alec here for you,” Alec couldn’t see or hear anything in the room but the woman sent him a little smile and told him to go in. Alec stepped into the room and was only minutely aware of her leaving and shutting the door behind her. 

Looking at Magnus made Alec’s heart break. He was no longer covered in blood, but he looked so broken. He was awake, but staring at the wall away from the door. Hesitantly, Alec took the empty seat next to the bed. He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do. 

“Magnus?” He tried, but didn’t get any response. He sat silently for ten minutes, Magnus would speak when he was ready.

“You were right,” Alec just heard Magnus’ whisper. 

“What?”

“You told me something was wrong, that we shouldn’t go. I didn’t listen to you and now-” Magnus voice broke and he choked on a sob, “Now my oldest friend is...” Alec jumped up and leaned over the bed, taking Magnus’ hand in his. 

“It’s not your fault,”

“It is, though. And not just Ragnor. You didn’t see...so many warlocks just...gone,”

“You don’t have to talk about it now, you should rest,” Alec sat on the edge of the bed, keeping his firm grip on Magnus’ hand, “You were hurt too, you need to get your strength back,” Finally, Magnus rolled his head to the side so he could look at Alec, meeting his eyes. 

“I tried to kill your mother,” Magnus admitted, quietly. Alec’s eyes widened slightly. 

“What happened?”

“She led the attack. She had...something. Something which stopped our powers from working. Rag-Ragnor and I stopped it, but then she...she,” Tears started falling down Magnus’ cheeks once more, “She did _that_ and I tried to kill her. I think I could have but too many shadowhunters came...I had to portal out to get Ragnor away,”

“It’s okay, Magnus,” Alec lifted Magnus’ hand and pressed it gently to his lips, he couldn’t really bring himself to feel too sentimental about his mother at that moment, “I’m just...I’m just glad you’re okay,” Magnus closed his eyes and rolled over so his whole body was facing towards Alec. 

“I don’t know if I can keep you safe anymore,” If they hadn’t been sitting so close, Alec doesn’t think he would have heard Magnus’ words. He could hear Magnus’ breath hitching as he cried, “My plan failed, Alexander... I don’t know what’s going to happen to you now. I can’t protect you,”

“It’s okay,” Alec repeated, sounding more sure of himself than he felt, “I know you’ll do everything you can,” They stayed like that, sat together holding hands for the longest time until Magnus fell asleep. Alec quietly slipped off the bed and back onto the chair, stretching his back out which had started to ache from his previously awkward position, then settling into the chair comfortably and falling asleep himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr :) - malecmarshmallow


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay chapter 7! This one really got away with me...The whole conversation with Magnus and Alec at the beginning was never in my plans and it was supposed to be tiny...but it just kept growing into what it is now! I've been on a complete writing binge the last few days and it feels good!  
> Hope you like this next chapter and thank you for all of the comments and kudos from chapter 6!  
> ~~~

As Magnus had worried, Alec wasn’t given much time after the ransom was rejected. The day Magnus was released from the infirmary he was called to a meeting. Well, not really a meeting, more like a very brief get together to pass on information. The fate of the shadowhunter was far too important to entrust to the views of a few. There would be a Warlock Council. Anyone who wanted to join was able to and they would decide the fate of Alexander Lightwood. 

That night, Magnus snuck into Alec’s tent to tell him all about the Council. They each sat on a wooden chair next to a small decorative table which had a pitcher of water for Alec to drink from placed on it. 

“So, tomorrow’s the day,” Alec mused, “I don’t think many people here like me very much,”

“You’d be surprised. I have a few people on my side,” 

“A few? Magnus a few people aren’t going to keep me alive. Look...whatever happens I want you to accept it, okay?” Alec wasn’t a fool, he’d recognized the looks that Magnus often sent in his direction. In fact he was sure they probably mirrored the expressions on his own face whenever the warlock was nearby. But that was the only reason Magnus wanted to keep Alec alive. He was risking himself, his own position in his society to try a keep a shadowhunter alive. It was improbable and completely unrealistic. They could never be together in the end anyway, and Alec couldn’t worry about Magnus’ reaction to his death. It would make it so much harder for him to accept. 

“Alexander, I can’t just-”

“Yes, you can. Promise me, Magnus. Promise me that no matter what the decision is, no matter what happens to me that you won’t fight it. Don’t ruin yourself for me, _please_ ,” Alec was aware that he was begging, but this was for the best. 

Magnus stared deeply into Alec’s eyes. So deep that Alec felt like Magnus was looking straight into his soul, unlocking every secret of his life. With a sigh he at last said,

“I promise,” The words sounded rough, as if they had been physically painful for Magnus to speak. Alec let out his own sigh of relief. 

“Thank you,” Magnus shook his head fondly.

“You shouldn’t be thanking me, Alexander, I’m the one who got you in this mess in the first place after all,” 

Without even thinking Alec replied, “I forgave you for that a long time ago,” Magnus sent Alec a look of pure adoration. 

“You’ve changed so much since I first brought you here. You wanted all of us dead then, didn’t care about anything. Although...you are still ready to die for your cause. But tell me, what changed your mind about warlocks?”

“Don’t be ridiculous Magnus, you know it was you,” As soon as he spoke, Alec felt his entire face flush a dark shade of red. What the hell was wrong with him? Why did he have to say that out loud? Angels that was so embarrassing. With a stutter, he had to try to finish explaining, “And, well...it’s not so much that I’ve changed my mind about all warlocks, it’s just...you. I know you now and I know that I was terrified when you were hurt, I know that I want you to stay safe. But as for the other warlocks out there? I don’t know if I could extend the same courtesy. I don’t know what to think anymore. And casualties are a part of war, if you care about them too much then that would just destroy you. Which is another reason why you shouldn’t care about what happens to me,” Alec was internally rather pleased with how well he’d spoken so much. 

Magnus spent some time appraising Alec’s words, “But you understand that we aren’t all out for blood and we don’t actually want to take over a rule all of the shadow world ourselves, right?”

“I think I’m starting to. Although I’m sure that view isn’t the same for all warlocks,”

“Most likely not, but they don’t matter. They’re the minority,”

“You know, you still haven’t told me how the war started. Before you hinted that I didn’t have all the correct information and if it’s really true that warlocks don’t want power, then what really happened?”

“I don’t think now is the right time for you to learn. If you...if you still...” Magnus broke off and coughed slightly. It was the most awkward Alec thought he’d ever seen Magnus. But he understood what Magnus was trying to say, _if you’re still alive...if you survive whatever happens next..._ “Then I promise I’ll tell you everything,”

“If I’m going to die anyway, don’t I deserve to know the truth?”

“Of course you do, but the knowledge will not aid you now. I don’t want you to have that on your conscience,”

“Alright,” Alec conceded, he knew he couldn’t get Magnus to talk if the other man really didn’t want to, “But can you answer me one thing? There’s something else I’ve been curious about,” 

“Yes?”

“How old are you exactly? I mean, were you there when the war actually started? You look like you’re eighteen or something, but I can tell from your eyes that you’re older than that,” 

“My, my Alexander. Didn’t anyone teach you that it’s rude to ask a gentlemen his age?” Magnus joked and Alec felt his face redden once more. 

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to-”

“In answer to part of your question, yes I was there when the war began. I was right in the middle of things when it started. Now I’ve wasted almost half my life on this war, I don’t think there are any shadowhunters who can say the same,” Alec took a moment to take that in. Almost half of his life? The war had been going on for around two hundred years, so Magnus had to be over four hundred years old. What was it even like to live that long? What was it truly like to be immortal? Alec couldn’t help but feel a little...insignificant. He was only twenty. Twenty years old, next to four hundred. What on earth did Magnus see in him? He was just some stupid boy. A little blip on the radar who would be forgotten as soon as he was gone.

“Does my age bother you, Alexander?” There was a hint of apprehension in his voice. 

“No...not exactly. It’s just...strange,”

“Strange?” Magnus shrugged, “Well, worse things have been said I suppose,”

“No, I’m sorry!” Alec apologized quickly, “I didn’t mean it like...in a bad way...I just...I mean,” Alec gave up trying to speak with an irritated groan, running his hands through his hair. Thankfully, Magnus looked more amused than offended and chuckled a little. 

“It’s alright, I _think_ I understand what you’re badly trying to say,” Alec smiled as a thank you and was sure Magnus understood that as well. 

“So...I guess I ought to get some rest before...before tomorrow,” Alec said. He didn’t want to kick Magnus out, in fact he’d rather spend as much time with the warlock as he could, but it wasn’t right. He couldn’t let Magnus get attached to him in any way if he was about to die anyway. Magnus looked like he was about to argue and opened his mouth to speak, before deflating and turning away as he stood up. 

“Alright, Alexander. I’ll leave you to yourself,” Magnus turned back and met Alec’s eyes, “Goodnight,” Goodnight. That word felt like so much more than it was. It felt like goodbye. Alec bit his lip and tried to stop the stinging sensation he was suddenly experiencing in his eyes. 

“Goodnight Magnus,” With one last look of longing, Magnus exited Alec’s tent. Alec crashed down onto his bed and rolled onto his side. This was it. This was going to be his last night on this earth. 

~~~

Alec awoke early the next morning. His heart feeling like a nervous wreck. It had taken all this time but he was finally realizing that he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to lose his family and...he didn’t want to lose Magnus. So what if Magnus would forget him in the future, he wanted to know Magnus now. Not that it mattered. 

He dressed and paced around the small space by his bed until he became aware of someone approaching his tent. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to center himself, he stepped outside to meet them. He was faced with five warlocks, the one in the middle was holding chains. Alec looked around and was annoyed at himself for feeling disappointed when Magnus was nowhere to be seen. 

“Alexander Lightwood, you are summoned to a Warlock Council, do you comply?” Mutely, Alec nodded and helpfully held out his wrists to be chained. He wasn’t about to make this more difficult for anyone. He understood why they were doing what they were doing, his mother had broken all honour and attempts at peace when she had murdered all those warlocks. Alec was the only piece they had to try and get revenge. It wasn’t going to work, since Maryse wasn’t really the sentimental type, but Alec was sure it would hit his siblings hard. He just hoped they were okay without him. 

The chains felt heavy as they were locked around his wrists. And Alec was sure they were probably infused with magic too. The five warlocks circled him and he was led through the camp to an area he had never really explored before. It was a little like a small arena, with tiered seating around the edges which were all currently full with warlocks. Alec was led to a chair in the middle where he faced a panel of ten warlocks. Alec assumed they were all High Warlocks when he saw Magnus among them. Magnus could only meet his eyes for a few seconds before he had to look away. 

That was when Alec looked behind them and noticed another warlock, sat higher than the others and in a larger chair. There were two bodyguard-looking warlocks stood either side of him. _That must be their leader_ , Alec thought to himself. He’d never seen the man before, but it was easy to see the air of power and confidence that this warlock had about himself. 

“Quiet,” The simple command quietened all of the warlocks chatter until there was nothing but silence. There wasn’t even any noise of animals from the surrounding forest, as if they were in their own little bubble. Alec wasn’t even sure how everyone had heard their leader, but guessed it probably had something to do with magic. 

“We are here to discuss the fate of Alexander Lightwood, eldest son of Robert and Maryse Lightwood,” His parents’ names were met with low grumbles from the crowd.

“His original use was for ransom towards the end of this war,” Nathaniel focused his gaze on the back of Magnus’ head, “But this has failed, leading to the massacre of many of our friends and family,” He lifted his gaze back to the surrounding people. 

“Now we shall decide his final fate, present your ideas,” Alec tried to zone out as all different warlocks, many whom he’d never even glimpsed before, argued about what was to be done with him. Lots of them wanted him dead, an eye for an eye so to speak. Although one death was nothing compared to the many that Maryse had caused. Others wanted him tortured, some said he should just be locked up and forgotten about. Surprisingly, there was a small few who thought he should be let go. They were better than shadowhunters and should show it. 

Magnus argued hard in Alec’s defense. Alec wished he would stop, wanted to tell him to stop but knew that he couldn’t.

Eventually, the time came for a vote. It was so diplomatic that Alec wanted to laugh. He closed his eyes and tried to relax as the voting went through. He didn’t want to try and figure out how close each option for his life was. When it was finally over, Nathaniel stood and cleared his throat. It was only then that Alec dared open his eyes, but instead of looking to the leader, he could only look at Magnus and listen as the leader spoke. The gloss and sadness in Magnus’ eyes was really all the confirmation Alec needed. 

“Alexander Lightwood, you will be taken into interrogation-” So torture then, just great, “-and once you have told us everything we need you are sentenced to die,”

Alec didn’t react. He wasn’t going to give any warlock the satisfaction of knowing he was terrified. He’d had a very small introduction to warlock torture before, this wasn’t going to be pretty. All he could hear as the guards led him away were Magnus’ shouts of protests. _Why should we kill him if he gives us information?_ He was yelling. Alec wanted to be angry, Magnus was breaking his promise. But he couldn’t feel anything. 

The only thing he knew was...he would never give up any information to the warlocks. If that meant his death came sooner, or was dragged out longer it didn’t matter. No matter what, he would never betray his own. 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

It took Isabelle a few hours to compose herself after breaking down with the news, but once she did she was more determined than ever. She stood to face Jace and Clary, not even a fraction of hesitation in her features. 

“We’re not going to let this happen,” She told them, “I don’t care what we have to do, we’re going to get my brother back.”

“But how?” Clary asked her.

“First, we’re getting out of here. I told you before I’d go rogue if I had to and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Are you with me?” Jace and Clary shared a look before standing up to face Isabelle.

“Let’s do this,”

~~~

It was surprisingly much easier than they had anticipated. The door to Izzy’s bedroom hadn’t even been locked, Maryse secure in her belief that her children, and the girlfriend of one of them, would obey her at all times. It was unthinkable that a shadowhunter be truly disobedient. 

Taking advantage of their guards’ confusion, Izzy and Jace had them knocked out and hidden in the bedroom in under thirty seconds. Not stopping to admire their handy work, they hurried to the armory to gear up. It was lucky that it was so late at night and there weren’t many people up and around the Institute. 

Upon leaving the Institute, they ran to the first lead they could possibly have. They ran to see Luke. Clary called him on the way, to make sure he wasn’t with Jocelyn and wasn’t about to tell her anything. He agreed to meet them at the Jade Wolf, the Chinese restaurant that served as the hideout for his pack. 

“I don’t enjoy lying to your mother, Clary,” Was the first thing Luke said as the three of them burst into a restaurant, “There had better be a good reason for this,”

“There is, I promise.” Sitting around a table, Izzy pleaded her heart out to Luke, begging him for help. Her brother was going to die because of their mother, she had to get him back before that could happen.

“Yeah I heard about that...” Luke admitted, “It was a terrible move on her part. But...” He seemed a little reluctant to continue speaking but kept on regardless, “You do know that it might be too late? It could be too late for Alec at any moment,”

Izzy sat up straight and fixed Luke with a strong glare, “I can’t think like that. Until Jace can confirm that it happened through the bond, I have to keep searching and do my best to save him. _Please_ help us find a way to do that,”

“What did you have in mind so far?”

“If we had a way to contact the warlocks, we could make our own deal for Alec,”

“What do you three think you have that the warlocks could possibly want?”

“I don’t know...but we could ask them, right?”

“I don’t think so, Iz. And if you did this behind the Clave’s back...” He trailed off and shook his head, “You’d be branded traitors and the Clave would throw you in jail and leave you there. I can’t let that happen. Remember, all you want to do is find Alec, not start some kind of revolt.”

“Well...we kind of already have. We’ve gone rogue disobeying orders and coming here. Does it even matter what we do now?” Clary input to the discussion. Luke glared at her.

“Yes it matters, Clary. Look, you can’t stay here anyway. As soon as Maryse realizes that you’re gone the first place she’s going to come is to me. You need to go out and start looking for clues, finding people who might know where the warlocks are. But stay low, you can’t get caught,”

“We don’t get caught twice,” Isabelle bragged, but was cut down when Luke shot back with, “You shouldn’t have been caught once!”

They spent the next couple of hours hashing out a search plan that might actually help them find some leads on Alec. They were just about to leave, saying their goodbyes to Luke at the door, when Jace felt a small pain surge through his parabatai bond. 

“What?” He placed a hand over the rune in confusion. He hadn’t felt anything for so long and now it was burning. Suddenly, intense pain washed over him and he cried out as he dropped to his knees, not even able to hear the concerned shouts of those around him. Were they too late?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr :) - malecmarshmallow


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi All!  
> Thank you so much for all the love I've been getting for this story so far and for all your comments and kudos! They feed my writing passion so thank you thank you thank you :D  
> Also if you guys didn't notice the new tag...there's a little description of torture in this one. I don't think its that bad or really graphic or anything but you know...just in case!  
> Enjoy~~

Alec’s screams could be heard throughout the entire warlock camp. It was unsettling for many of the warlocks there and more than a few were questioning their decision, but it was too late to change it now. Nathaniel and some of the other High Warlocks were considering where they could move Alec that was still protected, but wouldn’t affect the camp like this. Magnus was firmly forbidden from any of their discussions, Nathaniel was punishing him for his previous mistakes and his consistent defense of the shadowhunter. 

One whole day had passed and still Alec had yet to utter a single word. Nothing. Not anything useful, not even a passing rude comment to his torturers. Absolutely nothing. Just screams. He didn’t want to since he hated showing them weakness, but he’d never experienced anything like it. He knew magic could be used for many things but this...he understood why the Clave were so afraid of it. Why shadowhunters would rather die than be taken prisoner. 

His whole body felt like it was on fire, his nerve endings were lit and it could alternate between feeling like their were pinpricks all over his body, to knives cutting him open. But the warlocks never laid a finger on him. It was all their magic. He didn’t even bleed. It all came from their magic. 

That night he was returned to a cell out in the forest. They wanted to keep going overnight, but it was finally agreed not to, so he wouldn’t disturb people too much whilst they were trying to sleep. 

With no regard given to his aching body, he was roughly thrown to the ground of the cell and left alone. He was grateful for the peace, but his body hurt so much that he physically couldn’t bring himself to move. All he could do was maneuver himself until he was lying on his back, but even that drew groans of pain from his lips and his body shook in protest. 

He was just drifting off to sleep when he heard a branch snap, putting his body on alert and tensing more than it already was. He couldn’t find the energy to move and see who was approaching him though. He still didn’t move when he heard whoever it was reach the bars of his cell. 

“Alexander,” That caused him to move, albeit not much. He twisted his head as much as he could to see him, because Alec would recognize that voice anywhere. 

“Magnus,” Alec breathed out, “What are you doing here?”

“Shh, quiet darling. I’m getting you out,” Magnus used his magic to make the tree branches of his cell move apart and he stepped inside moving straight to Alec’s side and kneeling down next to him, “I’m going to heal you now,” Alec saw the blue spark in Magnus’ hands and automatically tried to flinch away from it. 

“I’m so sorry, darling.” Magnus held Alec down with one hand and used the other to heal the pain, keeping his movements small and slow so Alec could see everything he was doing. When he was done, Alec gingerly sat up and looked at the worried expression on Magnus’ face.

“Really Magnus, what are you doing here?”

“I told you, I’m getting you out. I’m going to send you home,” Alec felt a rush of affection, but he knew it could never happen. 

“You _can’t_ ,” Alec argued, “Magnus you promised me that you would accept whatever was going to happen to me. You have to go before someone catches you here. What will happen to you when the other warlocks realize what you’ve done?”

“I don’t care about that. I can’t bear to listen to them hurt you again,” In a fit of bravery, Alec reached out and placed a hand on Magnus’ cheek, resting it there gently. Magnus lent into the touch and covered Alec’s hand with one of his own. 

“Then just don’t listen. I’m serious Magnus, I can’t have you getting in trouble over me.”

“I didn’t think you cared _quite_ so much Alexander,”

“You idiot, you know I do,” In his second bold move of the night, Alec leant forward and pressed his lips against Magnus’. Magnus stilled in shock, but didn’t take long to gather his thoughts together and realize that he should be kissing back. It lasted barely a few moments, but a few moments in which both of them felt more alive than ever, before Alec pulled back and pushed Magnus away from him.

“No...I shouldn’t have...I’m sorry,” Alec turned away so his back was facing Magnus and he curled in on himself.

“Alec...”

“No, Magnus...please. I shouldn’t have done that and you should go. Just go, please.”

“Alec I can’t just leave you here,”

“Yes you can! I’ll find my own way out, Magnus leave. Please leave me alone,” He heard Magnus sigh and a shuffling sound. By the time he turned around, Magnus was long gone. He felt like he wanted to cry. That was probably his only chance at escaping and he blew it. All because he couldn’t face anything happening to Magnus. Angels he was so stupid, why did he have to care so much about a damned warlock? 

And he knew he would never find his own way out of here. His only way out was to die. Dying in battle at the hands of the enemy was the most honourable - and preferable - way to go, or of old age if you were lucky enough. So it wouldn’t quite be that way for him, but at least it was still the hands of the enemy. 

He just hoped now that Magnus wouldn’t get in trouble for healing him, the other warlocks were bound to notice that. Curling back up on the ground, Alec tried to sleep but failed horribly. His mind wouldn’t stop whirring. It was sometime later that he thought of Jace. Jace his parabatai who was connected to him always. If Alec concentrated hard, he could feel Jace through their bond. 

Feel. Jace was feeling everything that was happening to Alec. Guilt flooded through him. How had he forgotten about that? He couldn’t let Jace go through that anymore. Standing up, he searched around for a broken branch that looked sharp. Their bond was weak already, due to their great distance. He had to do this, Jace was going to have to deal with losing him anyway, a little while earlier so that he didn’t have to feel the effects of torture wasn’t going to be a bad thing. 

Alec finally found what he was looking for and lifted his shirt to see his own parabatai rune. He hesitated. Could he really do this? If he severed the bond and then somehow survived, he and Jace would be broken forever. But was he really likely to survive anyway?

Clenching his eyes shut and concentrating as hard as he could, he pressed the pointed branch into his skin.

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Jace was hidden in the back of the Jade Wolf. The pain from his parabatai bond was too much for him to handle, he’d never felt anything like it before. They couldn’t move him so Luke had no choice but to agree to hide him and they were just hoping that no shadowhunters dropped by looking for him. 

Clary sat with him, occasionally pressing a cool towel against his forehead and around his neck in between the more excruciating sounding screams of pain. Her heart ached for Jace and especially for Alec. If this was what Jace was feeling, how much worse was it for Alec? What was he going through? She couldn’t even imagine what the warlocks might be doing to him. 

Isabelle had gone out, pushing through her own pain at her two brothers suffering, to try and start their search plan. It was dangerous for her to go alone but at least she could be a little stealthier. 

There was a lull in Jace’s pain and Clary sat back, letting out a little sigh of relief. She decided to call Simon, to see if he’d managed to secretly get any information out of Raphael. 

_“Hey Clary, what’s up?”_ Simon greeted as he answered his phone.

“Hi Simon! I just wanted to ask about Raphael. Has he mentioned anything more about Alec or the warlocks?”

_“Uh...well...”_

“What?” There was silence for a few moments, just the sounds of Simon clearly moving to somewhere he was less likely to be overheard. 

_“You see...there’s actually a warlock here right now...”_

“What?! Simon what?!” Clary shrieked into her phone, jumping up from her chair and startling Jace.

_“Clary calm down,”_

“How can I calm down, Simon? I have to come to the hotel now!”

_“No, you can’t! They’ll know I told you! Look, I don’t know much but I know they’re talking about Alec. If you let me go I can listen in and see what I can learn for you, okay?”_

“Okay, Simon thank you so much,” Simon hung up without saying anything else. Clary understood the risk he was about to take for her and was supremely grateful to have Simon as a friend.

“What was that about?” Jace asked, his throat feeling scratchy. Clary handed him a glass of water which he drained quickly. 

“We might be about to have some good luck for once,” She explained her conversation with Simon as Jace listened with wide eyes. 

~~~

It was late that night when the pain in Jace’s bond finally seemed to let up. It appeared that the warlocks didn’t plan on torturing his parabatai overnight, thank god. Izzy was back from her less than fruitful search so the three of them were sat out back, eating some fried noodles as they waited to hear from Simon. He was their best lead right then. 

“Jace, can you feel Alec now?” Izzy asked him. Jace placed a hand over his rune and closed his eyes, concentrating. 

“A little. He’s not hurting anymore,”

“That’s something, I guess.” They all nearly had a heart attack when Clary’s phone starting ringing from it’s place on the table between them. Clary nearly threw it across the room by accident in her rush to pick it up, it was only her shadowhunter reflexes that prevented that from happening. She hit speaker phone and put the phone back in between them all. 

“Simon?!”

_“Hey Clary,”_

“Don’t ‘hey Clary’ me, what did you find out?”

_“The warlock was here for a really long time, I couldn’t catch much without making it obvious what I was doing,”_ The shadowhunters tried their best not to let disappointment through just yet, _“But from what I gathered, this warlock was trying to find a way to get Alec out safely.”_ The three of them shared a look.

“But why would a warlock want to do that?”

_“I don’t know, like I said I didn’t get to find out much. But you should know that Alec has some friends there.”_

“Is there any chance you could get Raphael to...I don’t know, push this warlock in our direction?”

_“I don’t know, I highly doubt it though. I mean, I’ll try but Raphael has been explosively angry since that stunt Maryse pulled...even if you weren’t involved I don’t think he’d risk another of his friends for you,”_

“Sure...thanks anyway Simon,” They said their goodbyes and sank down in their seats. That really hadn’t been as helpful as they’d hoped, but when was anything for them lately anyway? Dejectedly, they headed off to bed - bed being some small mattresses on the floor of the Jade Wolf - to try and get some sleep, worrying about what Alec and Jace would have to go through tomorrow. 

~~~

They didn’t have to wait so long to find out. Just a couple of hours later, Jace woke to a stinging feeling in his rune. He cried out, something was really wrong with his bond.

“Jace? Jace what’s wrong?” He couldn’t answer them. He didn’t know himself. It was agony. When he reached through the bond, he felt the first signs of it wavering.

“No!” He cried out, Alec couldn’t do this! When the pain subsided, Jace was a sobbing mess on the floor. He didn’t dare lift his hand from his rune to see the damage, but he could already feel the loss.

“Jace, what happened?” Jace didn’t bother to hide his tears from them.

“Alec he...he broke our bond,” His parabatai was effectively dead to them now. Jace wouldn’t be able to know if he was alive or what was happening to him. 

“Why would he do that?”

“Probably to stop Jace suffering...” Clary felt more respect for Alec. It must have taken him a lot to severe his bond, just to keep Jace safe. It was stupid, of course. But she knew he thought he was doing what was best for them. 

“So that’s it. He’s sure he’s going to die. He wouldn’t have severed it first if he wasn’t,” Jace whispered. He could feel a hole in himself where his brother should have been, as if Alec was already dead. How could he go on feeling like that? 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Magnus had been sulking all day. He was slumped over on a bench in the gardens where he had spoken to Alec the day that the shadowhunters had called for the meeting. He was trying his best to block out the intermittent sounds of Alec’s screams but it was proving to be rather difficult. More than once he’d found himself squeezing his eyes shut and his hands pulling painfully at his hair as he tried to distract himself. 

Why hadn’t Alec agreed to leave with him? He was such a noble idiot. Magnus was already old enough, it didn’t matter what happened to him. Alec was young and he deserved to live a long life. And a happy one, if Magnus had anything to say about it. God he’d gotten everything into such a big mess. 

Magnus had spaced out so much into his own thoughts that he didn’t notice when someone came to sit on the bench with him. He didn’t notice until he felt a gentle hand touching his shoulder. He startled, his magic flaring up on instinct until he realized it was Tessa. 

“Hello Magnus,”

“What do you want, Tessa?” Magnus was well aware of how sharp he sounded but couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

Tessa took care to speak calmly with him, “It’s better that you’re not alone now, Magnus.”

Magnus scoffed, “You’re just here to keep me company? You don’t have to bother with that,”

“Well that yes, but I also thought you should know that a lot of us are talking. There’s a lot of regret about the decision to send Alec into interrogation. Almost enough to have the ruling revoked,”

“Tessa, my love, please don’t get my hopes up,”

“That’s not my intention, I just thought you would want to be informed,” 

“Thanks, but I can’t say it’s going to help. Nathaniel wants him dead and that’s all my fault,”

“It’s not your fault,”

“Oh really? Then who’s fault is it?”

“It’s no ones fault,”

“Don’t be juvenile with me, Tess. We both know it’s always someone’s fault,” It was then that they heard the sound of screaming echo through the camp once more. Magnus buried his face in his hands, feeling his body tense an impossible amount more. 

“I appreciate you trying to talk to me, but please leave me alone,” Tessa didn’t leave, but she did stop talking. Words clearly weren’t what Magnus needed right then. She pulled him to her and let him collapse onto her, all his strength fading away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk to me on tumblr :) - malecmarshmallow


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi All!  
> This chapter is a little late, I'm sorry! But I had a long weekend at the beach so I wasn't able to post! As punishment I got pretty badly sunburned :'(  
> Lots of things going on in this chapter! You get to find out something that I know some of you have been waiting for..! And perhaps some good things happen :)...finally! But there is some angst too as usual of course.  
> I'm loving all the comments and kudos that you guys are giving me - thank you so much! *sends out cookies* :D  
> I hope you enjoy it! ~~

After nightfall, Magnus had had enough. He had to go and see Alec again. He told his friends he was going to bed and snuck away. It was easy to get to the cells without being seen, perhaps warlocks were a little too trusting of their own kind sometimes. 

Upon seeing Alec, Magnus’ heart broke. Similar to the previous night, Alec was lying on the ground, but this time he was curled into a ball and was shaking. Without thinking about it, Magnus used his magic to open the cell and hurried to Alec’s side. When he saw the blood staining Alec’s t-shirt he started to panic. 

“Alec? Alec? What happened?”

“Magnus? Is that you?”

“Of course it is. What-” That was when Magnus noticed. Alec’s eyes were open, but were wide and unseeing. Instead of that beautiful blue that Magnus had become accustomed to, Alec’s pupils and irises were a milky white. Magnus’ heart shattered into a million pieces. The interrogators had taken away Alec’s sight. For what reason Magnus couldn’t even bear to think about. 

“Oh, Alexander. What did they do to you? Let me heal you,” Alec’s arm reached out awkwardly to try and find Magnus’ before he could do anything. Taking pity, Magnus brought his arm into Alec’s space and felt Alec’s shaking hand grip onto to him.

“You can’t heal me. They noticed today and they weren’t happy. Please don’t...they’ll be harder on me and you might get in trouble,” Magnus wasn’t happy with that, but he wasn’t about to do anything that might put Alec through anymore pain than necessary.

“But what happened? Your shirt is covered in blood...warlocks don’t usually-”

“It was me,”

“What?”

“My parabatai bond,” Carefully, Magnus lifted Alec’s shirt needing to see whatever Alec had done himself. 

“You cut out your rune,” Magnus mumbled, mainly to himself. The shock of seeing a patch of missing skin on Alec’s body a little too much for him to handle, “Why?”

“I had to,” Alec groaned in pain and rolled over, this time facing towards Magnus, “You know how a parabatai bond works, right? He could feel everything that happened to me. What kind of parabatai would I be if I made him go through that again?” Why did this man have to be so damn selfless? Couldn’t he think about himself just once so he didn’t have to suffer so much for others? Magnus didn’t want to make things worse by saying that out loud, so instead said,

“Come on darling, let’s get you more comfortable, okay?” Delicately, Magnus lifted Alec slightly and moved him around so as Magnus sat with his back resting against a tree trunk, Alec was lying next to him, his head resting in Magnus’ lap and one hand resting on Magnus’ knee. Magnus thread his fingers gently through Alec’s hair. 

“Magnus?” Alec said, after a while of sitting together in silence.

“Yes?”

“Will you tell me now, about the war? Please?” Magnus sighed. It wasn’t a conversation he particularly wanted to have right at that moment, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to refuse the shadowhunter again.

“Alright, you want to know how it began?” Alec nodded, “What do you know about the shadowhunter Valentine Morgenstern?”

“Not much. He was Clary’s great great something grandfather.”

“Clary?”

“My brother’s girlfriend,” 

“I see. And what do you know about the Circle?”

“The Circle? Never heard of it,”

“Well, Valentine was a very charismatic and charming young man. In his youthful years he started to form a group of friends - the first of which became the founding members of the Circle. He started out claiming to want a better world for everyone and more cooperation between the shadow world. As he got older things...well...things changed.”

Magnus took a deep breath before continuing.

“At the time it wasn’t very common knowledge that Valentine hated all downworlders. He was jealous of us, if we could have all these different powers, why couldn’t shadowhunters? Shadowhunters were better than downworlders, they deserved more power to keep everyone in line.” His hand tightened ever so slightly in Alec’s hair as he spoke but he was careful not to cause any pain.

“He had a lot of followers by this point. Things started small...they tried kidnapping downworlders and claiming they had broken the law, killing them if necessary. But it soon became clear to Valentine that the powers downworlders possess could not be transferred to shadowhunters through any means he could think of. He was angry and resentful and only had one solution to this problem. Kill all downworlders. If shadowhunters couldn’t share their powers, no one deserved to have them.

The Clave couldn’t do much to stop him then, even if they had wanted to. Like I said, he was extremely charismatic and had a lot of support for his ideas. He declared war against the warlocks and that was the start of the war. The first twenty years were messy. A lot of deaths on both sides. That was when Valentine died, he was so caught up in his own magnificence that he couldn’t for one moment believe that he could ever be overcome.

That was his fatal mistake and whilst on a raid of a warlock hideout he was killed. A lot of us hoped that would mean an end to it. The instigator was dead, what was the point in continuing? However, the Clave had had to support him that far and didn’t want to be perceived as cowards by calling an end to things. They started to spread their new story about how the war started to the new generations of shadowhunters and well...here we are now.”

Alec was silent for a long time before he could speak, “Why just the warlocks? If he wanted all downworlders dead why did he focus on warlocks?”

“To my knowledge - I might be wrong mind you - he wanted to take out the most powerful threat to shadowhunters first. Once warlocks were gone it would be a piece of cake to take out the rest of the downworld. Gratefully, he never saw that happen and we will keep fighting to stop it from happening. We don’t want power, Alexander, we just want peace. Most of us, anyway.”

“Your new leader, he doesn’t want peace does he?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“So what’s going to happen when he sends you all out to fight for real?”

“I don’t know. Just...I’m working on it, okay? Don’t worry.”

“How can I not worry? After I’m gone I need to know that my siblings will still be safe,”

“Should that occur, I promise that I’ll watch out for them, okay?”

“Thank you,” Alec sounded drained, he was still reeling from all the information about the war. It seemed so ridiculous to him, how could this war have been going on for long for such a stupid reason? How could the Clave think it was better to keep fighting than to admit they were wrong?

He fell asleep with those thoughts scrambling his mind and the feeling of Magnus fingers soothingly combing through his hair. 

~~~

Magnus jerked awake a few hours later and hastily checked his surroundings. It was still dark thank god, he hadn’t slept long enough to get caught. Looking down he couldn’t help but watch Alec sleeping. He looked so peaceful, like none of the events of the last few weeks had ever happened. Magnus was loathe to move and leave him, but he didn’t have a choice. And he had things to do, plans to set in motion. 

With gentle motions, he lifted Alec off of him and carefully woke him. He couldn’t leave without saying anything and have Alec wake up alone. 

“Alexander? Darling I have to leave now,”

“Magnus,” Alec’s voice was small and needy, his hands reaching out, his eyes open now but still white and unseeing. He managed to grab a hold of Magnus’ jacket, “I don’t want you to leave,” Magnus felt his heart break once more, he wasn’t sure how much more it would be able to take.

“I know darling, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to.” He pressed a small kiss to Alec’s forehead before stepping away, “Get some more sleep, Alexander.” 

He left quickly, knowing that if he delayed for any reason it would crumble his resolve that much more so he probably would have remained there. Sneaking out of cells was easy and he knew exactly where he was going next. 

Tessa always had trouble sleeping and he was sure she would be awake, it was almost dawn. Marching down to towards the sleeping area, Magnus’ hunch was proved right when he saw Tessa tending to some flowers across from her tent, sparks of magic flicking from her fingers as the flowers blossomed under her care. 

“Magnus?” She sounded surprised, “What are you doing up? Where have you been?”

His eyes were ablaze with determination as he said, “I need a meeting with Nathaniel. _Now_ ,”

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Everyone at the New York Institute was on high alert. Three shadowhunters had gone missing - or ran away as was most likely - and it was of the utmost importance that they were found. 

Maryse had called in all of the active shadowhunters in the area, including Jocelyn, and had them in the main hall of the Institute for a briefing. 

“The three missing shadowhunters are Jace Wayland, Clarissa Fairchild and Isabelle Lightwood,” Photos of them were displayed on large screens around the room, “In your assigned teams you will drop all of your current missions and you will find them and bring them back to the Institute. You may use any methods at your disposal to complete this mission short of killing them. Do you understand?” A chorus of ‘yes ma’ams’ resounded around the room and Maryse nodded once in satisfaction. Teams automatically started to file out of the Institute, but Maryse caught Jocelyn by the elbow before she could go.

“Jocelyn, I understand that Clarissa is your daughter and you want to protect her, but if you know anything about her whereabouts and you’re withholding it from us...it won’t be good for you,” Jocelyn wrenched her arm away from Maryse’s grip, fixing the other woman with a look of disgust.

“Yes I’m well aware of how you view my family and I and I know you would love any excuse to ruin us. But...isn’t your daughter one of the ones missing too? Didn’t she help to knock out the guards and escape? Do you know where Isabelle is, Maryse?”

“Of course not! Why would I be doing all this if I knew-”

“Exactly! You do not know where your daughter is, do not presume that I know where mine is. The difference is, I’m going to go looking myself to try to find them, whilst you stay here and wait for someone else to do it for you,” Without another word, Jocelyn spun around and left with her team, leaving Maryse wide-eyed and rather angry. 

~~~

Upon leaving the Institute, Jocelyn made up an excuse to leave her team and hurried straight to Luke at the Jade Wolf. He’d been there for a few days, said he was having some problems with his pack. Maybe the wolves would help to search for Clary. 

Stepping into the Chinese restaurant, she was shocked when Luke was immediately in her space in front of her. 

“Jocelyn? What are you doing here?”

“There’s a search for Clary and the others, I thought you might be able to help,”

“No, you should leave. You can’t be here right now,” Jocelyn couldn’t help but feel hurt.

“Don’t you care that your step-daughter is missing?”

“Of course, that’s why you can’t be here. The less you know the better,” Jocelyn eyed the restaurant, trying to see out the back.

“Are they-”

“We can’t talk about this, you need to go.” She nodded, understanding immediately. 

“Alright. I’ll do what I can to keep the searches away from here. Just tell me...is she okay?”

“She’s fine, love.” Jocelyn smiled and hurried out to meet back up with her team. Just what was her crazy daughter getting herself into now?

~~~

Clary glanced out of the door to make sure her mother was gone. So there was a search out for them now. They were officially rogue. 

“So we need to move quick before they find us,” She mused. 

“I have an idea,” Isabelle said. Jace was napping on one of the mattresses. He was still feeling bad after the loss of his parabatai bond. Izzy and Clary couldn’t even begin to imagine what that might be like and were more than happy to let him rest. “We should go back to the Seelies. I know Meliorn was hiding something from me before and I respected that he didn’t want to get involved,” Her eyes were hard as she looked at Clary, 

“But now I can’t care about that. Time’s running out and I have to find Alec. If we go together he can’t distract me and he can’t evade all of our questions. I know it’s wrong, but we need to force him to tell us,”

“You’re positive that he knows something?”

“Yes,”

“Alright. I’m for it, let’s just give Jace a little more time to rest and then we’ll go. We shouldn’t split up now,” Izzy agreed and they filled Luke in on their plan. 

A few hours later found them on their way to Meliorn’s hideout. Jace definitely wasn’t feeling 100% and had a grim expression set on his face, but he soldiered through. He understood the wisdom in not splitting up when there were people out searching for them and he would do anything now to find Alec. 

Entering the hideout they found Meliorn who looked happy upon seeing Isabelle, but it seemed to drop a little when Clary and Jace entered behind her.

“Isabelle. To what do I owe this pleasure?” Izzy didn’t return his smile.

“You’re going to help us. Seelies can’t lie and you’re going to tell us everything you know,” Meliorn began to look a little apprehensive. 

“I cannot be involved in the war, Isabelle, you know that,”

“Yes I do. And I’m sorry but I don’t care anymore. All that matters is finding Alec. I know you probably won’t ever forgive me but this is something I have to do,” Jace and Clary took their places beside her, Jace crossing his arms menacingly. Isabelle stepped forwards and pushed Meliorn down onto a chair, leaving him nowhere to run. 

“How do you contact the warlocks?” He looked helplessly at Jace and Clary, but seemed to realize there was going to be no way out of this. 

“I call them, or they call me.”

“By phone?”

“Yes,”

“Have you ever been to their main camp?”

“No, only warlocks are allowed entrance,”

“Do you know where their main camp is?”

“How do you know that that is where your brother is being held?” Meliorn tried to deflect.

“Answer the question,” Jace demanded.

With a sigh Meliorn said, “Yes,” quietly. The shadowhunters tried their best to ignore the hope and excitement rising in their chests. 

“Where is it?”

“I could be killed for telling you that, you know.”

“We know,” Isabelle softened slightly, “Look, no one knows we’re here. No one has to know it was you who told us, we won’t tell. Where is their camp?”

“It’s in South America, the Valdivian Forest. There are wards surrounding it so mundanes can’t find it and none but warlocks can enter,”

“Sounds like a big place to search...where exactly in the forest is their camp?”

“I don’t know. The forest stretches from Chile and into Argentina. All I know is that it’s closer to Argentina,”

Leaning down, Isabelle kissed Meliorn on the cheek.

“Thank you,” She whispered and the three shadowhunters left the hideout just as quickly as they had arrived, leaving Meliorn reeling over what had just happened. He pulled out his phone, there was a call that he needed to make. 

Now that the shadowhunters had a location, all they had to do was find a way to get there and damn everything else, they were going to do it.

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Sitting opposite Nathaniel, it was not difficult for Magnus to keep his confidence showing. He didn’t like this man, he didn’t trust this man and that made it all that much easier for Magnus to demand things from him. 

“What are we gaining from ‘interrogating’ the shadowhunter exactly? He is never going to give us any information,”

“Well Magnus, do tell what would you have me do? We all know just how well your plans work out,” Magnus ignored the jibe against him.

“Surely it would be better to just kill him and get it over with?” Nathaniel’s eyebrows rose.

“I wouldn’t peg you to be petitioning for his death,”

“Perhaps not, but senseless suffering isn’t something I enjoy. And neither do many of the warlocks around camp now that they have realized what their decision entailed.”

“So you’re suggesting I should kill him in order to keep everyone happy?”

Magnus shrugged, “More or less,”

“And you would be completely okay with that decision?” Nathaniel was smirking, as if he had Magnus trapped in a corner. 

“Yes,”

“Unfortunately, I don’t believe that the general population of warlocks would be happy with that.”

“Oh?” Magnus replied, sweetly.

“Indeed. Most of them are proving to be just as spineless as you are. I know you do not want that Nephilim’s death. So tell me, what are you willing to give me in return for his life?”

Magnus was careful about guarding his facial expression as he stared Nathaniel down. He knew he was giving away a big piece of information now, but it was okay. He’d factored that into his plan.

“Anything,”

“Anything? Alright then, Magnus. I will hold you to your words. You can have the shadowhunter released, but he is not to be removed from the camp. Acceptable?”

Magnus nodded his agreement, “Acceptable,” They stood and clasped hands across the desk between them, sealing their deal. 

“You’d better go before they get too enthusiastic for today,” Magnus recognized the dismissal and made to exit their leaders tent, happy to leave quickly. The sooner he left the quicker he could get Alec. Pausing at the entrance, he couldn’t help but ask,

“Have you heard from Isaac lately?” Nathaniel froze for a few seconds before relaxing.

“Not lately no, why?”

“Oh I was just curious. It was just strange how he left. Since he left you in charge I thought maybe he was contacting you, I was wondering how he is,”

“Well I haven’t heard from him. Goodbye, Magnus.”

Something was definitely wrong with Nathaniel Hawk. Once Magnus had figured out all the problems he already had on his plate, he was going to find out what it was. 

Never mind, that didn’t matter now. He had to get to Alec. Darting outside he sped around to the space where they were interrogating him. He heard a scream and started to run, he needed to be faster. 

The guards at the door couldn’t even stop him as he practically flew inside the small building.

“Stop!” One of the interrogators sighed and stepped away from Alec, who looked like he was having some kind of seizure whilst lying on a tabletop. 

“Come on now Magnus, you know you can’t protect your little pet,”

“New orders from Nathaniel. He’s to be released.” 

“What?!” The man sounded outraged. 

“Feel free to take it up with our most benevolent leader if you don’t trust me, for now however you will stop and release him,” The men grunted out their disapproval but did stop their torture, storming out of the building no doubt to go and confirm the order. 

With no one there to stop him, Magnus propelled himself across the room and used his magic to assess the damage they had done to Alec. He still had no sight and there was some severe damage to some of his nerves among other things but it was nothing Catarina couldn’t heal and he would get better with time to rest. With the lack of pain assaulting his body, Alec had passed out on the table. 

Now Magnus wasn’t weak, but Alec was really tall and pretty much made of pure muscle - which he was usually very appreciative of - so it wasn’t easy for him to lift Alec into his arms and carry him, but that wasn’t about to stop him. He used his magic a little to help and hurried back to his tent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk to me on tumblr :) ~ malecmarshmallow


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys,  
> I'm so sorry about how long it's taken me to post this chapter...I've been dealing with a lot of personal problems so it took me a lot longer to finish this chapter how I wanted it than I planned. Perhaps it's a little sloppy and not one of the best but I thought it was better to post something rather than nothing! Hopefully it won't take me so long for the next chapter.  
> Thank you again for your comments, I know I've been lazy in not responding to all of them, but I love reading them they give me so much inspiration to keep writing!  
> ~~

It took three days for Alec to wake up. His body had been completely drained of energy and he needed the time to regain his strength and continue to let his body heal. Magnus had been a worried wreck the whole time even though Catarina repeatedly reassured him that Alec was going to be fine. 

The first thing Alec became aware of as he woke was how comfortable he was and then how warm. He had the nicest feeling that wherever he was, he was safe. Blinking his eyes open slowly he looked around in confusion. Where was he? It was clearly someone’s tent but whose? It definitely wasn’t his. He could see colourful decorations placed all around, making the tent feel very homely. Wait...see! _He could see_! Somehow he’d gotten his sight back! What on earth had happened? Why wasn’t he still being interrogated?

Then, his roving eyes settled on Magnus, who appeared to be dozing in a chair pulled close to the bed. 

Alec subconsciously relaxed further, snuggling down and pulling the blankets more firmly around him. He realized now how familiar and nice the scent was - he was in Magnus’ bed. The thought brought a red flush to his cheeks and he was glad that the warlock was not awake to see it. Although, he couldn’t help but wonder what on earth Magnus might have done to get him released. Hopefully it was nothing too bad. 

Feeling safe and warm, he closed his eyes and slipped back into sleep.

The next time he woke up Magnus was nowhere to be seen, but he didn’t have to wonder where the warlock was for long as less than two minutes later the door to the tent was pushed back and Magnus stepped inside.

“Alexander!” Magnus exclaimed upon seeing that Alec was finally awake. He rushed over to the bed and sat down on the edge, “How are you feeling, darling?”

Alec took a moment to systematically check his body, tensing his muscles and twisting his joints. 

“Not so bad,” He said at last, “Considering everything. Just tired,” His body still ached a little, but with everything that he had been subjected to it seemed to be a miracle that he was feeling as okay as he was.

“That’s not surprising, your body went through a lot. You’ve been asleep for three days already,”

“Three days? Really?” Magnus nodded. “What happened? The last thing I remember is you running in and then nothing,”

“Nathaniel agreed to release you from interrogation,”

Alec fixed Magnus with a hard stare, easily coming to the conclusion that Magnus must have been involved in that decision.

“What did you do?” Refusing to meet Alec’s eyes, Magnus flippantly tried to brush off the question.

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,”

“What did you _do_ ” Alec repeated, his voice becoming stronger. Magnus sighed, and still pretended that he found the Persian rug on the floor of his tent to be much more interesting to look at than Alec. 

“I really didn’t do anything,”

“I don’t believe you. There’s no way that anyone planned on letting me go. Not unless you got involved and did something. What did you promise?” Magnus cursed how intuitive this wonderful shadowhunter was. 

“Nothing important. It doesn’t matter anyway, I don’t want you to worry about it,”

“How can I not? Magnus, you promised that you would accept whatever happened to me. You can’t ruin your life for mine,” Magnus leant forward and took Alec’s hand in his, giving them both a strange sense of backwards deja vu, when Alec had taken Magnus’ hand when he was in the infirmary. Magnus finally looked up to meet Alec’s eyes.

“I couldn’t just sit back and let them hurt you. Don’t worry about me, just worry about yourself. Relax and get better,” Alec exhaled deeply. He didn’t quite have the energy to argue with Magnus about it now. Magnus smiled.

“Get some more rest darling, I’ll come back and check on you later,” He leant forwards and pressed a tender kiss to Alec’s forehead before slowly standing up. 

“Wait,” Alec said, swiftly grabbing onto Magnus’ wrist, “Could you stay?” He asked quietly, a little embarrassed, “Just for a while longer?” 

Magnus swelled with affection for the man in front of him. 

“Of course I can Alexander. I’ll be here as long as you need,” He sat down in the chair next to bed and kept a hold of Alec’s hand as he fell back to sleep.

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

In their excitement about finally learning the location of the main warlock camp, Isabelle, Jace and Clary were perhaps not quite as careful as they should have been when returning to the Jade Wolf. They didn’t notice when someone began following them. 

The wolves noticed though. As soon as the three were safely inside, the werewolves were up in protective stances ready to fight. 

“There are more shadowhunters outside,” Luke informed them, scolding slightly. How could they have been so clumsy as to get seen? But Luke understood it wasn’t the right time to lecture them now. 

“Give up the Nephilim, wolf!” They heard shouted from outside. Looking out of the windows they could see five shadowhunters waiting for them. 

“This is your call,” Luke aimed at Jace, “It’s not ideal but my wolves can hold them off whilst you get away, or you can hand yourselves over,”

“What do you think?” Jace asked the girls in a hushed tone. Clary shrugged. 

“Maybe it’s okay to go back,” Izzy suggested, “We have the location now, we need more help to get there,”

“But do you really think Maryse isn’t going to lock us in the dungeons of the Silent City?” Clary was a little more skeptical about how helpful Maryse was really going to be to them. 

“We have no way of getting to Argentina quick enough to be of any help to Alec, we need help whether we like it or not. And more weapons. We’ll just have to make a deal with her and hope for the best,” Izzy turned to face Luke, “Thanks for the offer, but we’ve got this,” He nodded solemnly and backed away from the door. 

With grim determination, they exited the Jade Wolf to face the shadowhunters outside. This by far wasn’t the most ideal plan...but it was definitely the best option available to them. Isabelle just hoped she would be able to kick some kind of motherly instincts into Maryse, otherwise they would probably fail miserably.

~~~

The first thing they saw at the Institute was Max, who had obviously escaped from whoever was supposed to be watching him. He ran to greet them at the doors, and jumped eagerly at Jace, who lifted him up easily to carry him. 

“Hey Maxy,” He greeted. 

“I missed you! Did you find Alec yet?” 

“We’re real close now, we’ll bring him back soon okay?” 

“Okay,” Max nodded, trusting Jace’s words. He struggled a little until Jace lowered him back to the ground. Max looked like he was about to speak to Izzy, when he was interrupted. 

“Max! Back to your studies _now_ ,” Max flinched at the cold voice of his mother, but didn’t leave. He looked up to Izzy imploringly. 

“You’d better go, Max,” She told him softly, “We’ll see you again soon,” 

“Okay,” Max said sadly and ran out of the room without sparing a look at his mother. The other shadowhunters dispersed as Maryse approached the three rogues. 

“I shouldn’t have to tell you how disappointed I am in all three of you,” She said finally, after eyeing each of them individually, “You’re going to have to give me a very good reason not to arrest you right now,”

“Well?” She insisted again, after she was met with silence. 

“We know how to find Alec,” Jace told her. Maryse’s eyebrows rose and looked at them with disbelief. 

“You three have found the location of the warlock camp?”

“Yes.”

“Well where is it?” Maryse was trying to hide the excitement in her voice, but her children could pick up on it. They knew exactly what she would do with that information. 

Clary knew it too, “We’re not going to tell you where it is. We’re going to use this information to find Alec,”

“No. You’re going to tell me and I will send another team to retrieve Alexander. For once you are going to listen to me and remain here,” 

That was too much for Isabelle, “No! For once you’re going to listen to us! Ever since Alec was taken you haven’t cared about him one bit, all you’ve cared about is killing warlocks. Alec is my brother, my family and I am going to bring him back. If you cared at all about your family you would let us go!”

“Family? What do you know of family, Isabelle? You have no idea of the sacrifices that I’ve made for this family. Give up on Alec, ever since he got caught he was no longer a part of this family and surely the warlocks have killed him already. If they haven’t yet they will soon.”

“He’s still alive! I am not giving up on my brother, he’s still my family no matter what you think. Now, are you going to help us or do we have to leave again?” Isabelle stared down her mother, doing a very good impression of Maryse’s stern expression. 

Maryse crossed her arms and pursed her lips. For a minute, Isabelle was sure that they were all about to be thrown in the cells. That was until Lydia Branwell appeared behind Maryse. 

“Maryse I do hope you’re not making any severe decisions about these three right now,” Lydia stepped into place beside her, “I have been sent by the Clave to take temporary control of this Institute. Maryse I’m going to have to ask you to leave us,” Maryse scoffed, but walked away. She wasn’t about to disobey an order even if she hated it. 

As soon as they were alone, Lydia began to apologize. “Jace...I’m so so sorry. I talked to the Clave about meeting with the warlocks, I had no idea what they would do when they agreed.”

“It’s alright,”

“No, it’s not. I know their choices may have led to horrible things for your brother and parabatai. It’s time for me to repay you,”

“How?”

“Come with me,” They followed Lydia to the weapons room. She walked to the back wall and opened a secret panel. Taking out a small device, she handed it to Jace. 

“This is the device to stop warlock magic. It’s the only chance you have if you want to free your brother,”

“Don’t you want to use this information for a surprise attack on the warlocks? Like Maryse would?” Clary questioned. 

“I would. But I owe you three the chance to find Alec first. Whatever comes after will happen then. So, can I help you with a portal?”

“That would be great, do you think you can get us to the Buenos Aires Institute? We should be able to make our own way from there,”

“Alright. I think you should take someone else with you too, a group of four has a better chance. Is there anyone else you trust here?”

“Raj.” Izzy said immediately, “He’s helped us before, he’d be a good choice,” Jace and Clary both agreed with her and ran off to find him. 

Once they were all geared up and ready to go stood outside the Institute, Raj included - he hadn’t questioned anything when Clary asked him to accompany them since he wanted to find Alec too, Lydia made a call to Idris and one of their captured warlocks created a portal which flared up in front of them. 

“Remember, you three are still in a lot of trouble. You went rogue and the report got to the Clave. I can give you this time to find Alec, but I can’t promise what will happen you when you get back,”

“Don’t worry, we can deal with it then,”

“Good luck,” She spoke as they ran through the portal.

~~~

When Alec awoke for the third time that day, he was feeling much much better. A glance to his right showed that Magnus had fallen asleep in the chair again and Alec couldn’t help but admire how beautiful he looked. A little of Magnus’ eyeliner had smudged at the edges and his usually styled hair was looking a bit flat, but to Alec, he looked just as outstanding as usual. 

Stretching his arms, Alec decided it was time for him to get out of bed. If he really had been out cold for three days, it was definitely time for him to get up and moving before his muscles decided never to work again. 

Throwing off the covers, he carefully moved himself into a sitting position and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. So far so good. Using his arms to help push himself up, slowly he stood and took a few baby steps around the room whilst he regained his balance. 

Once he felt more steady, he became curious about the little trinkets Magnus kept. Many of them were clearly very old, collected over centuries of life. Alec picked up a small statue of what appeared to be some kind of Goddess and admired it’s beauty. 

“You’re up!” The words shocked Alec and he cursed as the statue slipped from his fingers. A click and a flash of blue caught it before it could hit the floor. Magnus stood and picked up the statue, returning it to it’s place on the table.

“Careful now, Alexander. That is very old and very valuable,”

“I...I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to...I know I shouldn’t have touched it. I’m sorry,” 

“It’s quite alright darling, no harm done. I’m happy to see you up and about. How do you feel?”

“Better. Uh, much better,”

“I’m glad to hear it. You’ll be out roaming the forest again as usual in no time,”

“Sure...I guess,” Alec’s legs felt a little tired again, so he sat down on a purple sofa close to where he had been standing. 

The silence between them felt charged with something that Alec didn’t quite understand. It was only when Magnus sat at the opposite end of the sofa and spoke that Alec realized what it might be. 

“Alexander...there’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Alec’s heart started beating faster. He knew what Magnus was going to ask already and he didn’t want him to ask it. At least, he didn’t think he did. He wasn’t ready to answer that question. What was he going to say? 

“That night in your cell, why...why did you kiss me?” At least Magnus didn’t sound like he was mocking him. He did sound genuinely curious as to why Alec would have done that. 

“I...I’m not sure,” Alec felt bad immediately when Magnus looked disappointed with his answer and he tried to back-peddle his words, anything to remove that look from Magnus’ face, “I mean...I know why I did it...but...but I don’t know how to...” Alec gave up trying to stutter through that sentence, cursing his own uselessness and inability to talk about how he felt. When he dared to look back at Magnus, he found himself faced with a fond smile directed his way. 

“I’m going to be very honest with you, Alexander. You’ve unlocked something in me. For over a hundred years I’ve refused to let myself feel anything for anyone, man or woman. Then from the very first moment I saw you, I knew you were special. I couldn’t let them kill you, but I couldn’t help you escape either so I brought you here, hoping that I would be able to protect you. Not that I’ve done a very good job of that,” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing.

“I know that you’re a shadowhunter and I’m a warlock so whatever feelings I’ve had for you are ridiculous. I know I should have let them kill you and be done with it, that’s what happens in war. But I couldn’t let that happen and since I’ve gotten to know you, I know you aren’t like most of the other mindless nephilim who blindly follow orders and believe everything the Clave has told you.” Alec looked down, a little ashamed because no matter what Magnus said, that was exactly what Alec was. 

“You didn’t try to hurt little Jasmine when she followed you into the woods, you don’t believe in violence for no reason, you want to protect your family more than anything else,”

“Magnus stop...you’re making me sound so much better than I really am. I don’t deserve it,”

“Why not?”

“Because...because you’re wrong. All I ever did was follow orders and blindly hate warlocks because that’s what I was told to do. I’ve never done anything for myself. I’ve killed your kind before,”

“And I’ve killed yours,” Magnus admitted easily. “Neither of us are perfect, Alec. But that doesn’t change the fact that since you came here, perhaps your views about warlocks has changed. Maybe now you’d like to work towards ending this war,”

“I would. I want that. This war is absurd and needs to finish, but other shadowhunters aren’t going to be so easy to convince.”

“Let’s worry about that later, for now I want to go back to our previous topic,” Magnus slid across the sofa to sit closer to Alec, “I don’t know why but I care about you a lot, and there’s no changing that,”

“I...I care about you too Magnus,” Alec said faintly, feeling a pressure on his chest lift. It felt good to finally admit it out loud. It was crazy, it was stupid, it was probably dangerous...but Alec couldn’t find it in himself to care at that moment. His heart lifted when he saw Magnus’ smile and he couldn’t help but smile back, feeling lighter than he had done in a long time. 

“May I kiss you, Alexander?” Alec swallowed hard, feeling nervous all of a sudden. He bit his lip anxiously as he was reminded of his complete lack of experience. Fighting in a war didn’t exactly leave a lot of time available for romance - kissing Magnus in his cell had been his first kiss ever, what if he was terrible? Magnus must have had lots more experience than him in his life. What if Alec just wasn’t good enough for him?

“Hey,” Magnus reached out to caress Alec’s cheek and ran his thumb across Alec’s bottom lip, releasing it from his teeth. “Don’t think so hard, if you don’t want to it’s okay. I won’t force you,”

“I know,” Alec felt surprised at how much he really knew that to be true. Magnus would never force him to do anything, “I want to,” 

Slowly, as if trying not to startle him, Magnus brought his knees under him so he was kneeling and leant forwards, dropping his forehead to Alec’s, taking a moment to relish in their closeness. Tentatively, Alec rested his hands on Magnus’ biceps, closing his eyes. Magnus cupped Alec’s face in both of his hands and finally brought their lips together in a soft and gentle kiss. 

It stayed slow, both of them happy to explore each others mouths and learn how they fit together. Alec slipped his arms around Magnus’ body and drew him closer, still not breaking their kiss, and Magnus’ hands found their way into Alec’s hair, tugging gently and causing small sounds of pleasure to escape Alec’s mouth and be swallowed by his own. 

Deepening the kiss, Magnus pressed them together even closer, loving the feeling of Alec’s rock solid chest pressed against his own. He kept a strong check on his magic, making sure he didn’t lose control. Magnus was lucky that he hadn’t scared the shadowhunter when he’d caught the statue with his magic, he definitely didn’t want to push his luck and find out what would happen if he used magic whilst being so close to him. He was very aware of how dangerous Alec could be, even without weapons. 

In an unusually bold move, one of Alec’s hands slipped down to play with the hem of Magnus’ silk shirt, his fingers lightly teasing at the skin underneath. Their kiss became breathless and just when Magnus was going to encourage Alec’s hand to touch his skin completely, Tessa burst into the tent.

“Magnus you have to...oh!” Alec and Magnus jumped away from each other as if burned, Magnus returning to the other end of the couch, putting distance back between them. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt...” Tessa began again, “Magnus you’ve been summoned by Nathaniel. He expects you right away,” Neither Tessa or Alec missed that Magnus froze at those words and began to look a little worried. Magnus stood, pulling down on his shirt to straighten it.

“I suppose I had better go see what he wants,” He glanced back at Alec once, giving him another smile before he left the tent, leaving Alec and Tessa alone together.

It appeared that it was time for Magnus to find out what exactly his promise of ‘anything’ was going to entail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr :) ~ malecmarshmallow


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> All I really have to say is...I'm sorry!!!  
> I know I hurt them and sadly this chapter is no different :'(...although there are a couple of nice moments in here.  
> I promise they will be happy eventually!!  
> ~~~

Magnus had been different ever since his meeting with Nathaniel that day. He’d come back to his tent after a couple of hours to find Alec and Tessa still talking with each other. Magnus had looked pale and a little twitchy, unable to look at Alec properly. He’d asked both of them to leave not long after. 

He’d been avoiding Alec for three days. Alec had seen him wandering around the camp, talking to all different warlocks that he’d never seen him talk to before. It all seemed so urgent and hushed that Alec couldn’t help but worry. Why was Magnus avoiding him? Surely the meeting couldn’t have gone that badly? Or was it because of the kiss? Was Magnus regretting it? Was he lying about the feelings he said he had for Alec? 

If he was then why bother in the first place? What did Magnus get from it exactly? It wasn’t something Alec particularly wanted to think about, but when he was alone with nothing to do he didn’t really have much choice. 

It was strange for him to be out and about wandering in camp again. His time in interrogation appeared to have won him some sympathy with many of the warlocks, but for the most part they still ignored him and kept their distance. Tessa and Catarina often stopped to talk with him now, which was nice, but he never really knew what to say to them so it was often a little awkward. He was trying though, social skills just didn’t come so easily to him. 

Alec was sat alone in the dining area, having just finished his dinner and was contemplating everything that was happening. Part of him still couldn’t quite believe that he was still alive. Although part of him felt dead. A phantom twinge came from his missing parabatai rune and he pressed his hand against it, feeling a strong sense of regret rising up in him. 

Just when he felt like he might finally break down, someone flopped down in the seat opposite him and dropped something on the table. Looking up he saw Jasmine sat opposite him. 

“Hi mister Alec,” She said simply and began colouring in the book she’d put on the table with some crayons. 

“Hello,” Alec replied, a little confused. He looked around the area for the girls mother, who couldn’t be happy that Jasmine was sat with him. He finally spotted her and they made eye contact. He was right, she didn’t look very happy, but nodded her approval once. It was okay. With a sigh, Alec relaxed a little. He didn’t want himself or Jasmine to get in trouble again. 

“Wanna colour with me?” 

“Uh, sure...” Alec pushed his dinner plate to the other end of the table when Jasmine turned her book so they could both colour at the same time. Alec picked up a crayon and began idly colouring the picture in front of him. He didn’t really pay too much attention to what is was until there was an exclamation from Jasmine.

“No! Not yellow! That’s Chairman Meow, he isn’t yellow! He’s more of a browny colour,” Alec frowned and looked more clearly at what he was colouring. It appeared to be some kind of room and he was about to colour a cat which was sat on top of the sofa. 

“Chairman Meow?”

“Yeah, he’s Magnus’ cat.”

“Magnus’ cat is in your colouring book?”

“Well yeah Magnus made it for me,”

“So is this Magnus’ house?”

“His apartment. Or it used to be I guess, before the war,” Alec was a little surprised at how easily this young girl could speak about the war. But then, it had been all she’d ever known about life, much like Alec himself. 

Looking closely at the picture again, Alec wasn’t surprised to discover how extravagant it looked. A chandelier, and large comfortable looking furniture and a gilded mirror on the wall. It was very Magnus. 

“Does he still have Chairman Meow now?”

“I think so, but he doesn’t stay here all the time.” Alec was beginning to realize just how much he didn’t know about Magnus. He didn’t know anything about the warlock outside of this camp...what did he like? What did he hate? Apparently he liked cats. Could Alec really like him when he didn’t actually know anything about him apart from the small glimpses that he’d been allowed? What if Magnus was really different to what he thought? What if he was just playing with Alec’s feelings..?

But then, he was the kind of man to make a colouring book for a little girl. He couldn’t be that bad. Deep down Alec knew Magnus wasn’t a bad guy, he was just being paranoid. But he was so worried about why Magnus could be avoiding him that his mind kept going to darker places. 

He continued colouring with Jasmine for at least another hour before her mother came and told her it was time to go to bed. The girl surprised Alec once more when she walked around the table and gave Alec a hug goodbye. He was stunned, but managed to pat her shoulder in return. 

“Bye mister Alec!” Alec waved as she left, pulled along by her mother. Alec couldn’t help but smile fondly after them.

~~~

The next day found Alec with Tessa and Catarina creating a banner for a warlock festival that was coming up. 

“It’s a celebration!” Tessa explained to him, when he’d asked what the festival was for, “To celebrate magic and life together,” 

“And what do you do to celebrate?”

“Singing and dancing, there will be lots of food and wine, too. And magic. People will be performing a lot of magic,” Alec felt a little apprehensive about that. Perhaps during the festival he could just hide out in his tent. He wouldn’t belong there anyway, since he didn’t have any magic. 

“Can’t you just, you know, make this banner with magic then?” The two warlock women sent each other a look before smiling at Alec.

“Just because we have magic doesn’t mean we use it for everything. Sometimes we do enjoy doing things the mundane way too. It keeps things interesting,”

Alec dipped his paintbrush into a some green paint and began to paint between the lines already drawn on the banner. 

He was completely focused, until he heard Magnus’ voice. The warlock was talking to someone not very far away who was mixing up what looked like some punch for the festival in a very large bowl. Alec couldn’t take his eyes away. 

Magnus looked beautiful. He had blonde streaks through his hair and thick dark eyeliner around his eyes, although there was no glitter which Alec found strange. He wore a red shirt made of some flimsy material that Alec wouldn’t know what to call and it had a deep v-neck, showing off much of Magnus’ wonderful chest. Beneath that were tight black leather trousers which definitely caught Alec’s attention. 

Until Magnus noticed him. They locked eyes for a few seconds, then Alec dropped his gaze and started painting again. He didn’t want to get caught staring when Magnus was avoiding him. Alec tried not to react when a shadow fell across the banner.

“Hello Alexander,”

“Hi Magnus,” He replied amicably. He could sense Tessa and Catarina watching them curiously and wished he was somewhere else. 

“How are you?” Alec just shrugged, “Look, I just wanted to apologize for the last few days. I know you’re still healing and it wasn’t right for me to shut you out,” When Alec looked up, he saw that Magnus at least looked sincere. Still though, Alec didn’t know what to say so he just shrugged again. 

Magnus exhaled unhappily, “Well...I’m really sorry. I hope you can forgive me,” With that, Magnus walked away and Alec let out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. 

“Are you alright, Alec?” Tessa asked, coming up beside him. 

“I’m fine,”

“Magnus really likes you, you know,” Catarina added. 

Tessa nodded in agreement, “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him like this around someone. You’re something special to him Alec,”

“No I’m not,”

“You are whether you like it or not. How do you feel about him?” Alec felt himself wither under their gazes. Sometimes he forgot how powerful the people surrounding him really were. 

“I like him, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing can happen,”

“I think something has already happened,” Tessa was obviously referring to when she had walked in on them kissing the other day. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Alec repeated, “I either die here or somehow get back home and we go back to being enemies,”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Catarina told him soothingly.

“I don’t want it to be that way, but it’s life. I know what will happen. If I tried to be with Magnus, it would only get us killed,”

“It is a shame that the two of you didn’t meet under better circumstances,” Tessa mused, “But I really think you should talk to him some more. You both want this, don’t you owe it yourselves to try?”

Part of Alec couldn’t believe that these two warlocks were being so supportive of their friends potential relationship with a shadowhunter. Their mortal enemy. Alec would certainly find no support from his friends or family. He didn’t even think that Izzy would be able to understand. 

“I...I don’t know,”

“You should talk to him. With the way things are looking you might be here for quite a while. Nathaniel won’t release you since you have so much information now. Magnus made a deal so that he won’t kill you and no shadowhunter has ever been able to find this place. You could be free to...do what you want,” Alec took their advice and stewed it over in his mind all day. 

By that night he’d made up his mind. He went to look for Magnus. 

~~~

He found him in his tent, speaking with a warlock that Alec now recognized as the High Warlock of Los Angeles. They didn’t notice him, so he hovered outside. He didn’t want to eavesdrop, but he was curious. 

“...how successful your plan is going to be, my friend,” Malcolm was saying. 

“I know it’s risky, and I can’t risk the wrong people finding out about this, but it’s the only plan I’ve got. It has to work,”

“So many things could go wrong. There’s a lot based on speculation, lots that might not even happen at all. And your biggest piece doesn’t know anything about it,”

“It’s better that way, the less he knows the better.” Were they talking about Alec? “I’ll tell him when the time is right,”

“I don’t know Magnus, this is dangerous.”

“Think about it at least, I could use your support,”

“Yes you could. I promise to think about it,” The door was pushed open and Alec jumped back as Malcolm came out. The High Warlock raised his eyebrows at Alec, but didn’t say anything as he walked by. 

Warily, Alec tapped against the door.

“Yes?” Alec stepped through and registered the look of surprise on Magnus’ face, “Alexander! I wasn’t really expecting to see you,” 

“Yeah...I...” The conversation he had overheard had thrown him. Alec wasn’t sure what he’d gone there to say anymore. He had to know, “Were you talking about me just now?” The way Magnus’ eyes widened convinced Alec that he was right. 

“What’s your plan Magnus? Don’t I deserve to know since apparently I’m a big part of it?” Alec knew we was being snappy but he didn’t care. He was right, Magnus was trying to use him for something, he just didn’t know what. 

“It’s not time, Alec.”

“Why not? I want to know what you want to use me for,”

“I don’t want to use you.”

“Apparently you do. Does your plan involve hurting shadowhunters? If not, why am I involved?”

“I don’t want to hurt shadowhunters Alexander, you know that. I need you to help me, I was planning to tell you when the time was right. I want to end this war and I need your help to do it.”

“I still don’t understand why you can’t tell me,”

“Because it’s dangerous. Please Alexander...I’m asking you to trust me.” Alec flopped down on a chair, all the fight leaving his body. 

“I want to trust you,” Magnus gracefully sat down opposite Alec. 

“You can trust me. I wasn’t lying to you before, I care a great deal about you Alexander, I don’t want to see anything happen to you,” Alec ran a hand through his hair. 

“I know I’m going to regret this. Okay, I trust you to tell me when you can,”

“Thank you. Why did you come here tonight? It can’t have been just to listen to me talk with Malcolm,” 

Alec felt his face heat up. Why did this always have to happen around Magnus? Magnus’ eyebrow twitched in interest. 

“I wanted to talk about us,”

“Us?”

Alec nodded, “I want to know what we are...where we stand with each other. Why we kissed and then you saw fit to ignore me for three days,”

“I’m truly sorry for that. I was trying to come to terms with some information and I know I handled it badly. As for where we stand with each other, the answer is simple. Wherever you want to. I’m happy to take whatever you’re willing to give me,”

“Will you tell me about you? I want to know you,” Magnus looked happily surprised.

“Of course, anything you want to know,” Magnus moved to sit on the purple sofa and tapped the space next to him, “Come, sit with me.” Alec didn’t hesitate to comply. Magnus snapped his fingers and handed Alec some kind of cocktail. 

Alec supposed if he really was going to trust Magnus...he had to start somewhere. He took a sip of the drink and was pleasantly surprised by the taste. He then launched into questioning Magnus. He wanted to know everything there was about that man.

~~~

Waking up the next morning, Alec felt more at peace than he had in a long time. It might have had something to do with the fact that Magnus’ chest was his current pillow and the warlocks arms were wrapped around him. 

Their talk had been just wonderful for Alec. Magnus had answered almost all of his questions and even offered stories about some adventures that he’d had before. The Peru story had been highly interesting. 

Alec couldn’t even try to deny it anymore...the feelings he had for Magnus were strong no matter what. He was still worried about whatever Magnus might have been planning, but it didn’t matter. As bad as it was, Alec would be happy to let Magnus use him for whatever he wanted. After last night, Alec was so gone for this man he would do anything for him. 

He had never really done or taken anything for himself before, he always had to think about the bigger picture, do everything for his family or the Clave, surely he could have just this one thing?

He couldn’t help smiling as he remembered...after a few drinks, talking for hours had progressed into kissing again. Magnus had an addictive taste almost like a drug and Alec couldn’t get enough of him. They hadn’t progressed much further than heavy kissing and some skin on skin contact, but it was more than enough for Alec, it had felt amazing. He never wanted to stop. 

He began trailing his fingers lightly across Magnus’ abdomen, appreciating the strong definition of the warlock’s body. Apparently shadowhunters weren’t the only ones who worked out. Magnus fidgeted slightly at the feeling and his arms tightened around Alec who whispered good morning to the older man. 

“Morning? Darling it’s much too early, why are you awake?” Magnus complained, pulling the blankets higher up around them to ward off the slight morning chill, “Go back to sleep,” Magnus shifted, switching their positions so he was able to cuddle into Alec and tangled their legs together. 

Magnus sighed happily, “You’re so comfy,” He mumbled. 

Alec smiled, “I’m glad you think so,” He idly trailed his fingers up and down Magnus’ back as the warlock fell back to sleep. Alec knew he wouldn’t be able to, so he just enjoyed the feeling of holding this man in his arms. 

~~~

It was fairly easy for the four shadowhunters to get to the Valdivian Forest after arriving at the Buenos Aires Institute. Their Institute head had been more than accommodating, arranging transportation for them to the edge of the forest and had even given them a modified sensor which should be able to help them track demonic energy. 

They hadn’t told them the exact purpose of their mission, they didn’t need to be fighting off another Institute before they could find Alec. The head had wanted to send more shadowhunters with them, but they had adamantly refused. They could deal with this themselves. 

Standing at the edge of the forest and looking through the trees, they couldn’t help but feel small and out of their depth. This place was _huge_. How could they even dream of finding the camp in here? 

“Well then, we’ve made it this far we can’t give up now,” Izzy said, trying to sound as optimistic as she could.

Together, they set off into the forest hoping for the sensor to pick something up. 

The first day they had to set up their own camp for the night after failing to find any trace of anything. 

The next day they had much better luck.

“Look!” Clary exclaimed, “The sensor!” Gathering around they all saw that indeed, it was starting to glow on the left side. 

“This is great, let’s get going!” Raj took off in that direction with the others close on his heels. It was nightfall by the time they found the wards surrounding the warlock camp. 

“I can’t believe we’re here,” Izzy mumbled, reaching out her hand to feel the barrier. Jace reached into his pocket and pulled out the device that Lydia had given him. As soon and he held it out, the barrier flickered and disappeared. 

Cautiously, they crept forward and Jace hid the device away again. It was easy to know where to go, once the barrier was down there was loud music and lights that could be seen from a distance, along with shouting and laughing voices. Obviously the warlocks were celebrating something. 

That was good for them, it meant the warlocks would be distracted. The trees offered them good cover, too. Sneaking as close as they could they were able to see many warlocks dancing close to a large bonfire. More warlocks than they’d realize would be there, they had to be careful. 

“Wait, is that Alec?!” Clary hissed under her breath.

“Where?”

“Come here, look!” Izzy pushed past Raj and Jace to crouch next to Clary. 

“Is he dancing?!” She seethed. How could he be dancing? 

“Where?” Jace still hadn’t spotted him. 

“There, with the small pink warlock,” 

“Not anymore,” Jace said, “There’s a man there now. They’re talking,” They watched in quiet anger as Alec began to dance with that warlock who he clearly knew quite well. 

~~~

The day of the festival had everyone in the camp in high spirits, excited about the night to come. Alec was trying to avoid it, hiding out in his tent as he had originally planned. Until Catarina came to interrupt him. 

“Hello Alec!” She sounded much too cheerful and was carrying some clothes over her arm. 

“Hi,”

“I have a gift for you, from Magnus,” She waved the clothes in front of him. 

“What for?”

“For tonight of course,”

“Oh. You know I wasn’t going to go. I’m not exactly welcome there,”

“Yes you are, this celebration is about everyone. And do you really want Magnus to be disappointed when you don’t show up? After he picked these out for you?” Alec grit his teeth as her guilt trip began to work. Dammit. She grinned, recognizing her victory. 

She handed over the clothes for him to look at. There was a dark blue tunic-like top with tight looking blue jeans to match. Nothing like he would ever wear himself. 

“This too,” Catarina held out a necklace. It was nothing fancy, a small pendant on the end of a chain shaped into a strange pattern that he had never seen before, “It’s our symbol for magic,” Catarina explained to him. 

“Does it do something?”

“No, there’s no magic in it. Just decoration. So, if I come back in a few hours can I count on you to be ready?”

“...yes,” 

“Excellent! See you tonight,” As quickly as she’d entered, Catarina whisked herself away. 

Alec fell down on his bed reading a book to try and keep himself calm before it was time for him to get ready. He couldn’t concentrate on it though. He kept seeing the clothes out of the corner of his eye. 

Finally couldn’t take it anymore. He threw down his book and picked up the tunic, feeling the soft material. He couldn’t deny that it was beautiful. He heart beat faster at the thought of Magnus choosing these clothes for him. 

It was still early yet, but he changed into his new clothes. They were comfortable and when he looked into a mirror he could see they fit and suited him perfectly. Of course they did. Someone with Magnus’ fashion talents wasn’t about to make a mistake with anyone’s clothes. He then picked up the necklace and slipped it over his head. 

He was actually starting to look forward to that night.

~~~

As promised, Catarina returned later.

“Alec you look stunning!” Alec blushed and stuttered out his thanks. She held out her arm, “Let’s go,” Together they left Alec’s tent and Catarina led him towards the celebrations. 

It was incredible. There was large bonfire and banners and streamers decorating the trees, colourful lights were hanging in the air. Music was playing from somewhere that Alec couldn’t see and people were mingling and drinking, many were already dancing together. 

Alec let go of Catarina and watched her head off into the crowd. He took a seat by the edge of the forest, trying to spot Magnus. 

He felt his heart stop beating when he finally spotted him. If Catarina had said that Alec looked stunning, well Magnus...he looked positively sinful. His tunic matched Alec’s but the colour was dark red and black with tight black trousers to match. The red matched the tips of his hair and decorated around his eyes which also sparkled with black glitter. 

He watched Magnus for some time. He was dancing with everyone, flitting from partner to partner sometimes quicker than Alec could blink. Just once their eyes met and Magnus smirked at him, before returning to his dance. Alec could feel himself getting turned on just watching Magnus and tried his best to control himself. He focused instead on the waves of magic surging towards the sky. As the warlocks danced they would send out colourful patterns into the air. It was quite something to look at. 

“Mister Alec!” Alec became aware of Jasmine running towards him. 

“Well don’t you look beautiful!” Jasmine beamed up at him. He was dressed in a white dress which looked fit for a princess. 

“Will you dance with me?”

“Um...” Alec wasn’t really the dancing type, but how did you tell a child that?

“Please?” How could he say no? What was it with women forcing him to do things? He stood up and took a hold of her hand as she dragged him towards the dancers. 

Alec had no idea what he was doing but it didn’t seem to matter. As long as he twisted Jasmine around an occasionally lifted her into the air she seemed perfectly happy, giggling away. Alec caught sight of Magnus once more as the warlock danced his way over to them. 

“What a wonderful surprise to see you dancing, Alexander.” His eyes slowly raked up Alec’s body, openly appreciating him, then crouched down next to the young warlock, “Jasmine sweetheart, would you mind terribly if I danced with Alexander for a bit?” She seemed to think about it for a moment. 

“I suppose that would be okay,”

“Thank you,” Magnus patted her head as she ran away into the crowds, “So what do you say Alexander?” Magnus held out his hand, “May I have this dance?” With a shy smile, Alec took Magnus’ hand and followed the warlock’s lead, trying to copy his moves. 

“Relax, don’t think so much,” Magnus whispered into his ear, which possibly had the opposite effect that Magnus wanted when Alec tensed at his sudden closeness. Magnus noticed Alec’s reaction and grinned mischievously. Suddenly Magnus’ body was pressed up close against his and one of his legs placed between Alec’s own, sealing them together. His hands trailed up and down Alec’s arms and he continued rolling his hips in time to the music. 

Alec closed his eyes and let out a small groan. It became louder when Magnus took a hold of his hips and encouraged them to start moving to the rhythm. Alec slid his arms around Magnus’ neck, gripping tightly. Their faces were so close together he could see the flickers of pleasure Magnus was showing as they ground their hips together. 

When Magnus dropped his head to Alec’s shoulder and let out a beautiful sound, showing just how affected he was by their dancing, Alec snapped. He couldn’t take it anymore. 

In a flash he ripped himself away from Magnus and grabbed the elder man’s wrist, tugging him away from the crowd. Magnus chuckled and hurried to keep up. 

“Where are we going, darling?” Alec didn’t say anything, just pulled him deep into the forest until he was sure there were no warlocks wandering around to find them. Alec promptly backed Magnus against a tree and smashed their mouths together. 

This was so different to the other kisses that they had shared in the last few days, it was harder, more passionate and filled with desperation. Magnus had no trouble keeping up with Alec’s need, kissing back just as fiercely. Taking control of their activities, he flipped them around and held Alec’s wrists tight against the tree so he couldn’t move them. 

“Oh, Magnus,” Alec moaned as Magnus began kissing down his neck, nipping and biting as he went. Always with his tongue ready to sooth if he thought he bit too hard. Alec was halfheartedly trying to free his hands. He wanted to touch and feel, but he was also enjoying the power that Magnus had over him in that moment. He knew if he really wanted to be free then Magnus would release him immediately. 

Magnus shifted and their hips met once more causing them both to sigh in bliss at the feelings it created. He loosened his grip on Alec’s hands and the shadowhunter took to opportunity to grab at Magnus’ waist, pulling him in harder. Their lips met met again, moving frantically against each other. 

Alec never knew being with someone like this could feel so good. 

All of a sudden, his shadowhunter senses registered a threat. Opening his eyes just in time he was able to pull them both out of the way of an incoming arrow. In the confusion of the moment, Alec missed the next one. He just heard Magnus’ grunt of pain when an arrow embedded itself in his left shoulder. 

He cursed and scanned the surroundings whilst trying to get Magnus up so he could take him away. 

“Magnus, use your magic. Make us a portal so we can get out of here,” Magnus snapped his fingers but his blue magic appeared just momentarily before fizzing out. 

“I...I can’t! My magic is being blocked!” As Alec supported Magnus against himself, he became aware of four figures coming into view. Four figures that he knew very well and were each brandishing a weapon towards them. Raj was ready with another arrow, Clary and Jace held out their seraph blades and Izzy had a tight hold on her whip. They each had a looks of confusion, disgust and even anger. 

“Leave him Alec,” Jace came forward, “We’ve come to take you home,”

Alec wavered between longing to go home to his family and not wanting to leave the man beside him. The man he’d come to care for more than anyone else. 

“I can’t Jace,” Jace’s eyes flashed angrily. 

“He’s a warlock Alec! We should kill him before he raises the alarm. Let’s go,” Alec gingerly sat Magnus on the ground, leaning against the tree, still not taking his eyes from Jace. He stood up straight and moved into place in front of Magnus protectively. 

“I’m not going to let you hurt him,”

“What the hell has happened to you Alec?! A few weeks in captivity and suddenly you’re a traitor? Although it looked like your time here wasn’t being spent that badly,” Alec flinched. He didn’t want to fight with his brother, this isn’t how anything should have been going. 

“I’m not a traitor!” Alec shouted back, just a vehemently, “Things just aren’t as black and white as the Clave make them seem,”

“Whatever it doesn’t matter, let’s just get out of here now. Alec come on,” Isabelle tried to intervene. She was hurting inside with how her brother was acting, but maybe he’d been brainwashed, or they had him under some kind of spell. If they could get him away from this place everything would be better. 

Alec spared a glance back at Magnus, who was breathing heavily, his hands pressed around the arrow. 

“I can’t leave him,”

“So you’re saying we searching all this time for nothing?! We shouldn’t have worried because you’d rather be here?!” Izzy was screaming now, but she didn’t have to worry about attracting attention. The noise from the festival was still too loud and they were too deep into the forest. 

“Of course not, I want to come home but...”

“But what?!” 

“Alec, brother, I don’t want to fight you. But I will if I have to. We’re taking you home,” He glanced over Alec’s shoulder, “Perhaps we’ll bring the warlock with us,” 

No. Alec couldn’t let that happen. He knew what happened to warlocks who were captured, there was no way he was about to let that happen to Magnus. 

Alec took a fighting stance, ready to defend. 

“Goddamn it, Alec.” Jace complained, but it didn’t stop him from launching an attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr :) ~ malecmarshmallow


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sorry it took me so long to post this chapter but I recently quit my job and decided to move back home...which was halfway across the world. So I've been super busy organizing things and trying to get over the time difference that I haven't had the time or the motivation to write this. 
> 
> Buuutt it's here now! This is a pretty important chapter and I hope I did okay with it.  
> Also, this story has been taking over my life and it's really angsty...if anyone has any prompts for me - fluffy or otherwise - let me know (on here or tumblr - malecmarshmallow) ! I'd really like to write some other one-shots or something but I'm seriously lacking in the ideas department!!!
> 
> That all said, I hope you enjoy this chapter and please don't kill me for the ending :)  
> ~

Alec blinked groggily as he slowly returned to consciousness. What happened? Where was he? His eyes flinched closed at the bright light before squinting open once more. He seemed to be in an infirmary. Not the one from the warlock camp and definitely not the one in the New York Institute. What was going on?

Tilting his head to the side, he saw saw Isabelle sat next to the bed leaning forwards with her head rested in her hands, staring at him with an unreadable expression. They stared at each other for a few long moments before Isabelle sighed and slumped back into the chair.

“So you’re finally awake. Do you remember what happened?” 

Alec wracked his mind for anything useful but all he could remember was dragging Magnus away from the party and into the forest.

“No-” Alec coughed at the roughness of his voice and eagerly drank from the glass of water Izzy passed to him. Lying back down he repeated, “No. I can’t remember much. Where are we?”

“Buenos Aires Institute, it’s the closest to the warlock camp,” Izzy informed him, “Do you remember fighting Jace?” Alec frowned. Fighting Jace? When had he...

Oh.

It was starting to come back to him. 

_“Alec, brother, I don’t want to fight you. But I will if I have to. We’re taking you home,” He glanced over Alec’s shoulder, “Perhaps we’ll bring the warlock with us,”_

_No. Alec couldn’t let that happen. He knew what happened to warlocks who were captured, there was no way he was about to let that happen to Magnus._

_Alec took a fighting stance, ready to defend._

_“Goddamn it, Alec.” Jace complained, but it didn’t stop him from launching an attack._

_Alec blocked the fist aimed at his head and countered with one of his own. It was hard fighting Jace, they trained together so much that they knew all of each others moves and how to counter them. He’d have to pull something new to win against Jace._

_And then he’d have to deal with the others... He was so screwed but tried not to get caught up thinking about that as Jace punched and tried to kick Alec’s legs out from under him._

_He lost track of time as they fought. Was someone going to notice? Maybe some other warlocks could come and help. He could feel himself getting tired but he wouldn’t let it affect him, he would power through no matter what. For Magnus, he had to._

_He should have known nothing really ever went his way..._

_Just as he managed to get the upper hand on Jace and knock him down, Alec felt something wrap around his ankles. He just caught a glimpse of the silver of Izzy’s whip before he was yanked to the ground. Before he could move something hard hit his head and all he knew was darkness._

“Fuck,” He mumbled, pressing his hand against his head where the strike had been, hissing at the pain when he made contact.

“Now you remember, huh?” Alec just nodded, “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” He replied truthfully, “Who knocked me out?”

“Raj. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry. Or hurt.”

“Hurt? Why would Raj be hurt?” Izzy shook her head at him, almost fondly.

“You’re as oblivious as always big brother,”

Alec still didn’t understand, but he didn’t really feel up to talking. And he really didn’t want to talk about why Raj - and by extension his siblings - was so angry. He could understand where they were coming from, they’d obviously gone through so much to find him and to finally find him in that situation must have been more than a little confusing for them.

They remained silent for a while, although Alec could tell there was something that Izzy wanted to say to him but was restraining herself from doing so. He had a sinking feeling it was about Magnus and he _really_ didn’t feel up to explaining that. 

“Alec, why were you...” Alec was almost relieved when Izzy was cut off by the door to the infirmary slamming open. 

“Is he awake?” Jace was loud as she stormed in the room. Noticing his former-parabatai was indeed awake and sitting up, Jace rounded on him, “Alright Alec it’s time for you to start talking right the hell now!” Alec stared wordlessly at Jace, his eyes wide. He felt a little dizzy and his body was hurting, he definitely didn’t feel like having this conversation. It didn’t seem like he was going to get much of a say in that matter though.

“What the fuck was going on with you? Why the hell were you defending a warlock? And why were you...fuck Alec why were you making out with him?!” Alec was a little worried that Jace was about hit him, but it seemed that his brother managed to hold himself back. 

Alec wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say here. Did he tell them truth? Did he tell them what they wanted to hear? Did he try to just brush it off? 

“Jace calm down,” Izzy ordered, “We don’t know the situation,” Izzy spoke to Alec with a more comforting voice and held Alec’s hand, ignoring Jace who was fuming as he paced by the end of the bed, “Alec can you tell us what was going on? Were you under a spell? Did you sense us there and use that as a distraction to get away from all the warlocks? Were you pretending to defend him to try and have the warlocks on your side for some plan we don’t know about yet?” 

His sister was grasping at straws, anything to avoid the possible truth that Alec had really wanted to be with the warlock. 

“What do you want me to say, Iz?” For Jace, that was as good as an admission of guilt. 

“What the fuck happened to you, Alec? You hate warlocks! You fight them with us! They want us all dead and have done for the last two hundred years! How can you suddenly be defending them?”

“It’s not like that. The Clave they...they’ve been lying to us. Magnus told me...” He paused as he came to a realization. Magnus. Fuck, what had happened to Magnus? His heart picked up speed as he began to panic. 

“What happened to him?” Jace screamed out in an annoyed rage. 

“I assume you’re talking about the warlock that you were protecting? Why do you care?”

“Please...is he dead? Did you leave him? What happened?” Seeing the fear in her brother’s eyes made Izzy more worried that she had been before. Was he still stuck under a spell? Or did he really have feelings for a warlock? 

“He’s here, locked in the cells.” Izzy told him quietly. Alec didn’t know if she should feel relieved or terrified. 

“What’s going to happen to him?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll have to wait and see when we get back to New York,”

“Please let him go. Let him escape, he doesn’t deserve to be here.” Alec jumped as Jace punched a cabinet on the wall, his fist going straight through the wood. 

“Alec stop this bullshit right now!” Jace moved closer to Alec looking completely destroyed, “The warlocks kidnapped you and held you for ransom, I felt them torturing you! You broke our parabatai bond! You could have been dead. How can you even think about defending one of them? How could we have found you celebrating with them?”

Alec had to take a few deep breaths before he could speak again. Jace’s words had hit him hard. He couldn’t begin to understand what they must be thinking about him right then, but he had to try and explain. 

“It’s not that simple. Magnus is the only reason that I’m still alive. I thought I was going to die, I was ready to die. That’s why I broke our bond, I didn’t want you to have to go through feeling what I was feeling anymore. Magnus risked himself to save me. He’s been doing that since we first met,”

“Why?”

Alec shrugged, “I don’t know why. But he...we...”

“Yeah we saw you two getting real close, Alec. You’re crazy if you think that he could feel anything for you. Do I even need to remind you that he’s a warlock? He just wants to use you for something and get some fun out of it while he does,”

“That’s enough, Jace.” Isabelle finally put a stop to his tirade. She may have not understood what was going on in Alec’s mind, but she could see the hurt in his eyes. No matter what she never wanted to see her brother looking like that. Jace didn’t look like he was ready to give up, but a healer chose that moment to enter the infirmary. 

“What’s all this commotion? My patient needs rest not arguments. You should be grateful that you managed to get him back alive,” The healer woman fixed Jace with a glare. The occupants of this Institute were not aware of all the finer details of their mission, but knew that Alec had been held hostage, “Now I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Isabelle squeezed her brother’s hand before grabbing onto Jace and hauling him out of the room despite his many protests. 

~~~

“There’s something wrong with him, Izzy!” Jace declared, once they were far enough away from the infirmary, “How can he be like that?”

“Jace, calm down! I agree with you,”

“You do?”

“Of course I do. Usually I’d be over the moon to see him so obviously interested in someone, but that someone is a warlock. There’s no way that Alec would betray us like that,”

“So what do you think?”

“I think that the warlock has Alec under some kind of spell and I’m going to find out what it is,” Jace shrugged in agreement and followed Izzy towards the cells in the Institute with no complaints. 

The guards let them in without question, the warlock was their prisoner after all. 

They found the warlock sat with his back against the cold stone wall, his hands still bound in front of him. They could see that the device to block warlock magic was still doing it’s job from high up on the wall. 

“What exactly did you do to my brother?” Izzy demanded without preamble. Magnus slowly lifted his head to meet her gaze. 

“I’m sorry? You’ll have to be more specific,”

“What magic have you used on him? What spells is he under?”

“The only magic I ever used on Alexander was to heal him,”

“You’re lying!” Jace snarled and crossed the room in a few short steps, grabbing Magnus by his shirt and dragging him up, holding him so his feet were hanging just above the ground.

“What do I have to gain by lying now? I’m your prisoner. What magic do you think I’ve done to him?” Magnus spat back at Jace. 

“You’ve messed with his mind. Made him think...made him act like he likes you. Forced him to believe whatever lies you’ve told him.”

Magnus hesitated for a moment, considering. Would it be better for him to lie and say he had placed a spell on Alec? At least his siblings would forgive him. But how would Alec react to that? Would he play along? It wasn’t like there was actually any magic on him that Magnus could remove, even if they did get rid of that damned device. 

“Alright, alright. It’s true. He’s under a spell,” Jace slammed him against the wall once more and then let go, watching Magnus slide back to the ground. 

“How do we get it off him?”

“You don’t,”

“What do you mean?”

“I could remove it, but...”

“But what?”

“It will wear off on it’s own, eventually.”

Izzy stepped forward, “How long will that take?”

“I’m not sure, a few days or maybe a few weeks.” 

“If you’re lying to us warlock...” Jace threatened. 

“I’m not. Give it time, the magic will just disappear.” Magnus forced himself to stare at both of them, willing them to believe him. He just hoped Alec understood why he was lying now. Or maybe Alec would believe them and think he _had_ been under a spell all that time. Perhaps that would be for the best, Alec would start to hate him and then he wouldn’t have to worry anymore. It would break Magnus’ heart, but better his than Alec’s. He’d survive. 

Jace delivered a quick kick to Magnus’ side, “You’d better be telling the truth warlock,” Without waiting for an answer, both Izzy and Jace left the cell.

“So Alec’s going to be fine then, right?” Izzy asked Jace. 

“I guess so. It’s such a relief, I had no idea what I would have done if he was actually in love with a warlock or something,” Izzy chuckled. 

“Me either. I hate thinking about my big brother being influenced by magic, but we’ll make sure he gets better.”

~~~

Izzy and Jace decided that it would be best to get Alec home and into a familiar environment as soon as possible. They hoped that it would help trigger himself back to normal and help the magic wear off faster. They didn’t tell Alec that he was under a spell because they didn’t want him to start panicking about it, or get angry and try to defend himself and the warlock because of it.

Back in New York, he would have to be kept away from things for a while, until it wore off. But after that everything would be fine and could go back to normal. Izzy was feeling very optimistic about that. 

But when she saw Alec see the warlock for the first time since their arrival back in the Buenos Aires Institute, she couldn’t help but think that this magic couldn’t reverse itself fast enough. 

He looked so saddened by the warlock’s bound appearance and it seemed like he wanted nothing more than to run over and hold the warlock in his arms. Much to Izzy’s delight, he refrained from doing so. She wasn’t the only one who noticed Alec’s behaviour. They had filled Raj and Clary in on the information about this magic spell that Magnus had used but it still didn’t quite stop it feeling very uncomfortable for everyone to see Alec acting that way. 

“Alright, let’s get home and face the music,” Izzy said. It was likely that they would all get into a lot of trouble upon returning to the New York Institute but hopefully a warlock prisoner and the return of Alec would soften the blow a little. 

Izzy held Alec’s hand and the two of them passed through the portal first, appearing just outside the entrance of the old church which housed their Institute. 

The others followed close behind, Jace and Raj both with a firm grip on Magnus. Together they entered the Institute and as so many times before, found themselves faced with a very angry looking Maryse.

“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble that you’re all in?!” She shrieked. “What on earth were you all thinking?!” As she continued yelling about how disobedient they are, Jocelyn ran in their direction and pulled Clary into her arms.

“Clarissa I’m so glad you’re back safe!”

“Of course I am mom,” Clary said, returning her mother’s embrace. Jocelyn pulled back and looked at Alec.

“I see you managed to find him, that’s impressive. I’m so proud of you,” Clary preened under the compliments. 

“Thanks,”

“That’s enough,” Maryse cut in, “They have broken the laws of the Clave and have to be held accountable,”

“Maryse they’re your children! They went to find their brother, can you really fault them for that?” Jocelyn tried to defend.

“I can. They disobeyed direct orders to remain here. They will be taken before the Clave for questioning, as will the warlock that they seem to have brought back with them,”

Alec couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that his own mother had completely ignored his return. Didn’t she care at all that he had been gone for weeks? Not even a little bit? 

Maryse called over a few other shadowhunters to take all of them down to the cells, Alec included. He didn’t bother to question why he was being taken as well since he knew how pointless that would be. 

Alec tried not to panic when Magnus was separated from them and taken to the downworlder cells. If he was there he wouldn’t know what was happening. How could he find a way to get Magnus out when he was stuck there? He had to get out of here before things could go wrong too badly. 

“How are you feeling, Alec?” Clary asked him, once they had all settled as comfortably as they could on the hard floor. 

“Fine,” 

“Are you sure? After everything you’ve been through...”

“I’m fine, Clary.” Alec snapped. He realized he probably sounded a bit rude, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Especially now that the tables had turned so much. 

“You know Alec, you could be a little more grateful after all we went through to get you out of there, them especially.” Raj said, “We went rogue for you, you know? That’s why we’re all stuck down here,”

“I never asked you all to do that for me,”

Izzy was incredulous, “Do you really think we wouldn’t do that for you? You’re family, Alec.”

“Not to our mother apparently. You wouldn’t have had to go rogue if she’d okay-d it,”

“Well she’s a topic for another day. Aren’t you happy we didn’t tell her all about your little dalliance with that warlock?” Jace interjected. 

Alec just shrugged, “So tell her. I was never good enough anyway, may as well just add that to the list,”

“But it’s not your fault that you acted like that. The warlock has you under a spell,” 

Alec frowned, “What?”

“He told us before we left Buenos Aires. That he used magic on you to make you more susceptible to their ideas. He said it would wear off eventually,”

Was that true? Had Magnus really put a spell on him? Or did he just say that to try and make things easier for Alec now that he was back with his family? He must have, that crazy idiot. Alec would have noticed if he were under a spell. Magnus couldn’t have gotten to him that quickly. He’d been attracted to him from the moment they’d first seen each other so unless Magnus had spelled him whilst he was unconscious it was highly unlikely. 

No. He was done with not trusting Magnus. There was no way Magnus would have put a spell on him. 

But perhaps it might be useful to pretend to his siblings that he had. It would save a lot of trouble, as Magnus had probably guessed. 

“We’ll keep you safe until it wears off, Alec. We promise,” Clary told him reassuringly. 

Alec just closed his eyes and leant his head back against the wall. By the Angels he just needed to sleep. Maybe once he woke up all this craziness would have just been a dream. He wasn’t ungrateful for all his friends and family had done for him and he was happy to be home, but the circumstances weren’t right. Magnus shouldn’t be there. And their relationship was so new...he really wanted to be able to explore more of it.

~~~

It must have only been an hour or so later when Lydia appeared outside their cell. 

“I can’t get you out,” She told them bluntly, “The Clave wants to question you about your behaviour themselves.” No one said anything but they didn’t really need to. This was kind of what they had been expecting anyway. 

“Except you, Alec.” Alec lifted his head, feeling confused.

“What about me?”

“You’ll come with me now. Maryse should never have sent you down here. Getting kidnapped is not a crime,” She opened the door and waited to Alec to vacate the cell before locking it again. 

“I’m doing my best to minimize the consequences for you all so try not to worry too much,” Isabelle offered a half-hearted thanks and then Lydia led Alec away. 

She took him to his bedroom with orders to get some more rest before he was going to be questioned about his knowledge of the warlocks and their camp. Just before Lydia could walk away, Alec had to ask-

“What’s going to happen to Magnus?”

“The warlock?” Alec nodded, “Well…he’ll be interrogated and put before a trial. It probably isn’t going to end well for him,” 

Alec looked at the floor, biting his lip. What could he do to make this right? How could he protect Magnus like Magnus had protected him? 

“Can I see him?”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Don’t I have a right to face the warlock who was responsible for my kidnapping?” Lydia softened a little.

“Of course. Tell the guards I okay’d you to go in, but don’t do anything extreme, alright?” Alec agreed and turned around walking back the way they had come from. If he saw Magnus maybe he could figure out how to make this right, how to fix everything without either of them getting hurt. 

The guards let him through into the downworlder cells with little fuss. He had to take a deep breath to steady himself before he entered the cells and shut the main door behind him. 

Alec could just see Magnus’ outline at the far side of the room. It was too dark to make out details, but he could tell that Magnus was lying on the floor. He could feel panic building up inside him. Was Magnus hurt already? 

He hurried over and knelt down, carefully pulled Magnus into his arms.

“Alec?” Magnus asked weakly. 

“Yeah it’s me. How are you doing?” 

“My magic is being blocked. I can feel it but I can’t use it…I feel…I don’t even know how to explain how this feels,” Alec held Magnus tighter and stroked his back gently. 

“I’m so sorry Magnus, I never meant for this to happen to you,”

“I know Alexander, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay though. I need to get you out of here,” 

“Alec…do you remember when you overheard the conversation between Malcolm and me?” Alec affirmed that he remembered, “How you knew I was hiding something but when the time was right I would tell you?”

“Yes,” Alec tried not to let his excitement show through. _Of course_ Magnus had a plan. He knew how he could get out of this. Magnus slid his hands around Alec’s head and lifted himself high enough that he could whisper quietly into Alec’s ear, making sure that no one else would be able to hear. Alec’s eyes widened in shock as he listened. 

~~~

The next four days were absolute hell for Alec. Jace, Izzy, Clary and Raj were still being held in the cells and he wasn’t allowed to speak to them at all. He wasn’t sure how much they would want to speak to him anyway but the option would have been nice. He also hadn’t been able to gain further access to Magnus which really rankled him since Magnus had come to see him when he’d been properly held captive. 

Shadowhunters clearly trusted each other much less than the warlocks did. It wasn’t like Magnus could escape with the anti-magic device so close by. As well as not being able to see him, Alec hadn’t been able to find out much about what was happening to Magnus either. He knew he’d been taken to interrogation but had no information about what happened or what condition Magnus might be in and it worried him more than anything. 

He was a bundle of nerves waiting for the trial. After Magnus had confided in Alec his plan, Alec had hurried to send a fire message to Catarina and Tessa. They hadn’t responded but he knew that was because it would be dangerous for him to receive a message from them whilst he was in the Institute. He was sure they knew about Magnus’ plan too and would be ready when the time came. 

He only had one more night to wait. One more night before he could see Magnus again and hopefully get him away to safety. He hadn’t thought as far ahead to worry about what was going to happen to him. If he stuck around long enough he would surely get arrested by the Clave and probably stripped of his runes for helping a warlock. If he left with Magnus he would be outcast anyway and would still never see his family. 

Was Magnus really worth it? 

Did he really want to throw away everything that he’d worked for his whole life for a warlock? If he did this there was no guarantee that he could help the war come to an end. In fact this might even make things a lot worse in the long run. 

What was the right thing to do? Again he wished that he had his sister to talk to, but that wasn’t going to happen. 

He had to make up his mind quickly. He’d been so set on getting Magnus out he hadn’t thought about any of the consequences of his actions. What if they punished Izzy or Jace if they couldn’t get to Alec? He wouldn’t put that past the Clave if they were able to condone a war started by a madman. 

He needed to sleep. In the morning he would know exactly what he needed to do and there would be no hesitation.

~~~

A shrill alarm woke Alec from his fitful sleep and he reached out to turn it off. It was almost time for the trial. Just one hour before Magnus would face the Inquisitor and a few other ranking members of the council. Alec didn’t know if Magnus had given up any information or not - although he was willing to bet not - but he was sure that no matter what the trial wouldn’t end well. 

Getting out of bed was easy and he rummaged through his desk for a piece of paper. He scribbled a quick note and fire messaged it to Tessa. Fifty minutes to go. 

He took a quick shower and dressed in his shadowhunter gear. It was nice to be in his own clothes again and feeling like the warrior that he was. Thirty minutes to go. 

Alec paced his room. He wasn’t expected at the trial, in fact he’d picked up on the subtle hints that Lydia and his mother didn’t want him anywhere near it, so he didn’t have to make any outside appearances. That helped, he could hide out in his room until it was time and no one would suspect anything. Twenty minutes to go. 

A flash seen out of the corner of his eye startled Alec for a moment before he realized that it was his bow and quiver filled with arrows and a seraph blade being portalled onto his bed. The ones that had been taken from him when the warlocks had first taken him captive. Alec let out a sigh of relief, everything was going according to plan. 

It was lucky really, Alec thought as a portal opened up just in front of him, that they knew the warlock who had first put the wards up around the New York Institute and therefore knew how to get around them. Tessa would never exploit that weakness for her own gains thankfully, but it came in very useful then. 

He strapped his weapons to himself feeling more confident that he had ever done without them and pictured his destination clearly as he entered into the portal. Ten minutes to go.

Alec appeared silently on the roof of the Institute. He wouldn’t have been able to get there undetected without the portal and he couldn’t hear anything so no one could have noticed anything and raised the alarm. He slowly jimmied open the window that he had landed next to and crept inside the room. 

This was the chamber where the trial would be held and everything was already set up and ready. Alec made use of his silence rune as he crawled across the beams, sticking to the shadows high above the room. 

Many shadowhunters were already filling the seating around the chamber. Some Alec was sure had come from other Institutes just to witness it. There must have been some serious bragging going on about having a High Warlock in their custody. Even his siblings and Clary and Raj were present, although they were handcuffed. They would be questioned after Magnus’ trial. Alec tried to ignore their presence as they would probably only distract him from what needed to be done. 

With just a few minutes to go, Imogen Herondale, the Inquisitor, entered and took her seat at a high podium located at the front of the room. Four council members that Alec didn’t know took their seats either side of her. Everyone immediately quietened down at their entrance, knowing that it was about to begin. Alec felt his heart racing in his chest. It was time. He couldn’t screw this up. 

The door opened one last time and Alec watched as Magnus was dragged into the room covered in chains. Alec felt tears well up in his eyes as he took in Magnus’ appearance. He looked bad. His usually stylish clothes were torn and dirty and stained with blood. Blood that Alec was sure was Magnus’ own. He had bruises purpling on all of his visible skin. How Alec wanted to kill the shadowhunters who were responsible for that. 

Trying his best to focus, Alec looked for the device and discovered it placed on bench in front of the Inquisitor. Alec almost grinned, that would be too easy. 

“Magnus Bane,” the Inquisitor began, “You are here to face trial, do you know your charges?”

“I do not,” Magnus’ voice was still strong. The Inquisitor fixed him with a stern glare.

“You are charged with conspiring in the war against shadowhunters and the kidnapping of one of our own, Alexander Lightwood. What do you say to these charges?”

Magnus laughed, “What can I say? Will you believe it?”

The Inquisitor chose to move on, ignoring Magnus’ response, “I am told that you have chosen not to cooperate and give us the detailed information that we require,”

“I will not give you the key to the destruction of my people, no.”

“Therefore we cannot deal with you. This is your last chance to change your mind or else I will have to sentence you to death. I’m sure your warlock marks will make for wonderful spoils,” Alec’s eyes narrowed, how dare she talk about Magnus like that? 

“I will never change my mind,”

“Very well,”

He had to do it now. The Inquisitor was calling for the guards, it was now or never. He couldn’t miss. Alec nocked an arrow in his bow and drew the string back. He had to get this right or they would both be dead. He had to focus…

Alec took a deep breath and released. 

The arrow soared through the air and cracked straight through the anti-magic device, effectively shutting down it’s power. 

As everyone reeled in the confusion, Alec leaped down from the rafters and raced to Magnus, undoing the restraints around him. 

“Good timing Alexander. Thank you,” Alec couldn’t help himself. It was such a bad idea - he was surrounded by chaos and his family, not to mention high ranking officials - still, Alec just had to do it. He grabbed onto the frayed lapels of Magnus’ jacked and pulled the two of them together, kissing Magnus straight on the mouth. 

His heart sang as their lips moved together once more. It felt so right, so perfect. Alec no longer had any doubts that he was doing the right thing. They smiled at each other as the split apart, not feeling overly concerned about anything around them until-

“Alexander Lightwood what the hell do you think you are doing?!” Alec flinched, his mother sure could shout when she wanted to. He didn’t say anything to defend himself, he didn’t even look at her, though he did catch a glimpse of disgust coming from his siblings. 

Before he could start to panic about how they had to get out of there, Magnus had already snapped his fingers and a portal opened. 

Alec watched in shock as instead of the two of them leaving, around thirty warlocks all filed through, taking places strategically around the room. The last to appear was Nathaniel, his arms spread wide and a cocky grin on his face as if he’d won the whole war by himself and was now the ruler of the world. What were they doing there? 

“Madam Inquisitor,” He inclined his head towards her in a mock show of respect. Alec felt Magnus grab onto his hand and grip it tightly. He returned the pressure not knowing what he was supposed to do now - he didn’t know this part of the plan. He really didn’t know anything about Nathaniel showing up. Did Magnus? Was this his plan or were things going wrong? 

“And you are?” The Inquisitor asked. Nathaniel didn’t seem offended by her ignorance, it wasn’t like warlocks and shadowhunters came into contact very often, but it showed just how little information they’d been able to glean about the warlocks over the years - practically nothing. 

“I am Nathaniel Hawk, leader to the warlocks,”

“What do you want here?” She seemed to realize that it wasn’t worth attempting a fight. The amount of shadowhunters to warlocks was almost equal and with their magic free it would likely cause too much of a loss. 

“I want what you’ve been keeping to yourselves for too long. I’m going to bring you down and warlocks will rule the shadow world,”

“And how do you plan on doing this?” 

“We’ve already infiltrated your Institute here, do you think we won’t be able to do it again?” Nathaniel turned his attention to Alec, “And let’s not forget we’ve proven how well we can use your own against you,” Alec felt Magnus freeze beside him. What was Nathaniel talking about? He wasn’t just being used was he? Did Magnus really have him under a spell and he just didn’t know about it? Magnus clearly hadn’t told him everything about his plan since all these warlocks had managed to get in. Was that his fault? Oh god. They were going to kill everyone and it was all his fault. What had he done?

Alec pulled his hand out of Magnus’ and took a few steps away from him. 

“Magnus,” Nathaniel started, “It’s time now,” 

Alec barely noticed how the warlocks were beginning to take more defensive positions and a barrier had appeared around them. Magnus’ eyes looked full of regret as he lifted his hands and began powering up his blue magic. 

Alec recognized it immediately. It was the same magic that they were going to kill him with originally before Magnus had stopped them. Magnus was going to kill him. He’d used him and his feelings to get this far and now this was it. This must have been Magnus’ plan all along. 

He blocked out the shouts he could hear coming from his sister and Jace, staying focused on Magnus. This was okay. He knew from the start that he was going to die it was just a matter of when. At least it was Magnus doing it and not someone else. If Magnus was the last thing he saw then that was just fine. 

Nathaniel was gloating loudly about warlock superiority from somewhere off to the side, but Alec couldn’t make most of it out. Looking at Magnus, all he could see was anguish written all over his face. Alec smiled and nodded his head, letting Magnus know that it was okay, he understood. 

The pain of fire once again licked at his skin and Alec grit his teeth as it burned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talk to me on tumblr :) ~ malecmarshmallow


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter already! I've been on such a writing roll yeaahhh go me!!  
> So luckily for you guys you don't have wait too long after my evil cliffhanger last time ;)
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this one, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> ~~~

Much to Alec’s relief the pain didn’t last long. Alec collapsed the second that the flames left his body and someone caught him but he wasn’t sure who. He realized that it must have been a warlock when he felt magic soothing away his burns. 

What on earth was happening now? 

He could just make out the flames changing direction and then he heard a confused and pained scream. 

“Magnus what are you doing?!” That was Nathaniel. Alec forced himself to focus on what was happening and could see Magnus now aiming his attack at the warlock leader. No one was stopping him. In fact the warlocks were all watching impassively, like they didn’t care at all. Or even expected this to happen. 

Looking over his shoulder, Alec caught a glimpse of blue skin and knew that it was Catarina who was holding him. 

“What’s going on?” He whispered hoarsely. 

“Don’t worry, everything’s going to plan.” Alec wasn’t quite sure what that meant, or if it was good for him or not since he didn’t know what was supposed to be happening. At least it seemed he wasn’t about to die after all. 

Nathaniel was still screaming, yelling for someone to help him to no avail. Alec watched as he fell to the floor. He’d obviously been caught off guard by the turn of events and unable to protect himself with his own magic. 

Eventually, Magnus slowed his flow of magic until it sputtered to a stop. Nathaniel writhed in agony on the floor. Even the shadowhunters were watching in silent interest as two warlocks approached their leader and bound him. 

Finally able to look at Magnus, Alec could tell that the warlock was absolutely exhausted. After having the block on his magic for so long and using so much of it at once was sure to take it’s toll. But Magnus didn’t let his obvious exhaustion show for long. He stood up straight and tall, facing the Inquisitor. 

“Inquisitor Herondale, am I correct?” She nodded, “My name is Magnus Bane and I am here to open up negotiations towards the end of this war between our two species,”

The Inquisitor raised her eyebrows upon hearing that, “Why should we believe you? Especially after the events which just took place,”

“Nathaniel no longer speaks for us. We do not all think like him and we do not want to rule the shadow world. All we want is to be left in peace,” When no one spoke Magnus continued, “There used to be an Accord between us and with all people from the shadow world, would it not benefit us all to create a new one? We can stop all this death now, it’s gone on for long enough,” 

“I will need to speak with the Clave. This is not something to be taken lightly,” She replied, after thinking deeply for a few long moments. 

“Of course, we would be happy to reconvene again at your convenience. However,” Magnus fixed the Inquisitor with a firm gaze, “The results of the previous attempt to make peace shall not be forgotten. This time, we ask for a system to be in place to prevent such atrocities from being committed again, from either side,”

“And what would that be?”

“A few warlocks will remain here, under your watch. They are to be treated a guests and will form a line of communication between us. In return, we will take some of your shadowhunters with us. They will also be able to contact you at any time,”

“Very well, for the time being I shall accept your terms and we shall meet again on neutral ground in the future,”Magnus inclined his head in thanks, “Who do you intend to take with you?”

“The Lightwood siblings. All of them, including Jace and Max.” The Inquisitor didn’t look surprised. 

“I see,” She turned her gaze to Alec who was still on the floor with Catarina behind him. She would prefer for him to be left behind as he was clearly under the warlocks spell. Be it magic or love she wasn’t sure but neither were a good option. 

Regrettably, it didn’t seem that that was going to be an option. 

“Alright, bring them forward.” Magnus helped Alec to his feet and held firm beside him, gripping their hands together tightly once more. 

Maryse just was watching in horror as Jace, Isabelle and Max went to join them, Max looking more than a little confused by everything that was happening, but she didn’t do anything to stop it. 

“The warlocks Elias and Tessa will remain here. If anything happens to them…” Magnus let the threat hang in the air. 

The Inquisitor finally stood from her place and walked fearlessly into the group of warlocks coming face to face with Magnus. 

“I will see to their safety. I promise nothing else in regards to the war but we will see,” Magnus held out his free hand and surprisingly the Inquisitor shook it, sealing their promises so far together. 

“Time for us to take our leave, then.” Another warlock created a portal and they began to file out. 

“Wait!” Clary shouted and rushed to Jace’s side, “I’m not being left behind!” 

“Clary stop!” Jocelyn yelled, her eyes wide with fear for her daughter. 

“Mom, I have to go!”

“Why?”

“Because! I don’t want to leave Jace and I need to find out what’s going on. They said we’ll all be in contact so I can let you know how I am, okay?” Jocelyn sighed but knew her daughter was set on doing this. Sometimes she despaired at having such a headstrong child, but at least she could be sure that Clary could take care of herself. 

Together, they all stepped into the portal. 

~~~

Alec blinked hard as natural light assaulted his eyes. They were back in the camp. Everything looked the same but…was it? Alec was sure the trees were different. Or something was different. 

Magnus was looking around too. 

“Is this some place new?” Alec asked, a little stupidly. 

“Yes, after your lovely siblings found our last camp we would have moved as soon as they knew that we were missing. I wonder where we are!” Magnus wandered off a little away from them, giving Alec and his family a little space as he pretended to check out some of the changes to the camp. 

Facing them, Alec saw that all of the held similar looks of uncertainty. Except for Max who had begun to look a little excited. 

Alec felt a little unsure himself. How could he explain everything to them? 

“Alec, I think it’s time for you to start talking. What the hell is going on?” Jace questioned him. 

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I only knew so much,”

“So do you want to explain to us why you freed the warlock?” Izzy sounded pretty angry at him. 

“Yes, I will. But not here,” He had become aware of the few warlocks around them. They didn’t need to air their family drama in front of everyone. Magnus chose that moment to reappear. 

“Alexander! I’ve made some additions to your tent, why don’t you take your siblings there and you can all sit down and talk,” Alec couldn’t help but smile at him. 

“That’s great, thank you Magnus,” Magnus beamed back at him before bidding them all farewell and disappearing back into the camp. 

“Follow me then,” Alec said weakly and led them all in the right direction. He was a little surprised by how okay he felt. Catarina had obviously done a really good job in healing him. If he hadn’t felt it happen he would have been questioning if he’d even been hurt at all. 

The siblings and Clary all took a moment to take in the tent once they entered. Alec thought they were a little surprised by how normal and how spacious it was. They took seats together on a couple of sofas and immediately rounded back on Alec. 

“How can you act like that around him Alec? He almost _killed_ you!” Izzy stressed at him. 

“But he didn’t kill me,” Alec was never going to admit to them that he really thought Magnus was going to. They would probably never forgive him then, “He used me as a way to take control away from Nathaniel. It wouldn’t have been my first choice but it was the best option open to him. I forgive him for it,”

“But why?”

“Because Magnus is not a bad person. He has a really good heart and he means well. He wants nothing more than to end this war. If he has to use me to do it then I’m fully behind that,”

“You’re so freaking brainwashed!” Jace yelled suddenly, “The Alec I knew would never let himself be used! Would never defend a warlock!”

“The Clave has been using us our whole lives, Jace! Once you know everything about the war then you’ll understand,”

“I already know everything. Warlocks tried to take power for themselves and kill us all. Whatever they’ve told you are lies!”

“They already have their own power! They don’t care about trivial things like the control of the shadow world. Most just want to be left alone,”

“Magnus told us he put a spell on you, Alec. You don’t really believe any of this,” Izzy had calmed down a little. 

“He was lying. He just wanted to make things easier for me,”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do. Look you guys don’t know him…you don’t know what he’s like so I don’t expect you to understand right now. But just know that I…I like him. A lot. That isn’t something that’s going to change and I want to help him. Surely you don’t want to be at war anymore either?” 

Jace looked like he was about to keep arguing, but Clary placed a hand on his forearm to quiet him. 

“Let’s give Alec a break, hmm? He’s been through a lot and we don’t know anything about it since we haven’t had enough time together to really talk,” They were all silent, taking in Clary’s words. On some level they all knew that she was right.

Max jumped off his seat and ran over to Alec, climbing up next to him and cuddling them together. 

“I missed you,” 

“I missed you too, Max.” Alec draped his arm around his little brother’s shoulders. 

“So will you tell us about it?” Clary prompted. 

“...Alright.” 

And so Alec began to tell them everything. Right back from how he got caught in the first place to his first days in the camp. His torture in the wake of the warlock massacre and everything Magnus tried to do to keep him safe. Although he’d not gone into so much detail about the more personal side of things between himself and Magnus…

For the most part, everyone stayed quiet and listened intently. What they were hearing was so different to anything they imagined could have been happening. Reluctantly, Izzy had to admit to herself that she might understand why her brother had taken a liking to that particular warlock. That didn’t mean that she had to like it. 

None of them knew what to say at the end of Alec’s story. What could they say? 

Max jumped in shock when they heard a knock coming from outside the tent. The tent flap opened as Magnus came inside. It was only then that Alec realized how long he must have been talking, since it was dark outside. His throat felt dry and he was in serious need of some water too. 

“Hello, I hope I’m not interrupting,” Jace looked like he had a few choice words for the warlock, but Alec cut him off before he could say them, 

“Of course you’re not. Is everything okay?” 

“Yes, I was just wondering if I could borrow you for a little while,” Alec was surprised but not unhappy. 

“Sure,”

“Great, I’ll just wait outside for you.”

“Alec don’t go with him, please.” Izzy begged, as soon as Magnus had gone, “I don’t trust him. Please stay with us,”

Alec almost gave into her, but his desire to see Magnus alone whilst neither of them were injured was holding too much of a pull over him. 

“I’m sorry. You guys will be fine, no one here wants to hurt you. Just don’t start any trouble and I’ll be back later, okay?”

~~~

They weren’t happy, but conceded to let Alec leave. Magnus happily led Alec to his tent and offered him a drink as they sat down. 

Alec happily agreed and drank deeply from a glass of water. When he was done, he saw the purely devastated look that Magnus was giving him, causing Alec to worry. 

“What’s wrong?” He put the glass down on the coffee table in front of them. 

“I’m so sorry Alexander! I didn’t want to hurt you, you know?” Alec could see Magnus’ eyes start to shine as if he might be about to cry, “I hated it, I hate myself for doing it. And for not telling you, but I needed your response to be genuine. I just… I’m sorr-”

“Hey,” Alec interrupted and caught Magnus’ hand in his own, “It’s okay. I understand,”

“You do?”

“Yes, and I forgive you.”

“Why?” Magnus seemed just as confused as his family had been, “I don’t deserve it,”

“Maybe you don’t think so but I do. I trust you, Magnus.” Alec couldn’t take the self-damning expression on Magnus’ face so he scooted over and pulled Magnus into his arms, “It doesn’t matter okay? I know it was the best way for you to get to Nathaniel. I’ll admit that it did cross my mind that you really were going to kill me, but I would have forgiven you for that too,”

Magnus held Alec even tighter after that, crushing their bodies together. It was a little uncomfortable but neither of them were willing to let go, “How are you feeling by the way? You seemed exhausted earlier after using all that magic. And did they hurt you a lot in interrogation?”

“It was nothing that I couldn’t handle, a little pain was nothing. As for my magic, I took a nap earlier so now I’m feeling much better. Catarina healed up my bruising too so I’m pretty much good as new,” 

The silence that followed was comfortable as they both enjoyed each others company and relishing in the fact that they were together again. Alec nudged Magnus’ face a pressed a small kiss to Magnus’ lips, which was gratefully reciprocated. 

“What’s happening with Nathaniel?” Alec asked quietly. They separated from each other but not very far, their sides still pressing together as they sat. 

“He’s being held, we have our own ways to block his magic. He’ll be facing his own interrogation soon, I don’t trust him. I don’t know what happened to Isaac, our old leader, but recently I’ve been thinking more and more that Nathaniel must have had something to do with it. I’m going to find out everything,”

“I hope you do,” Alec told him sincerely, “And what about the war? Do you believe that Elias and Tessa are safe left behind?”

“I have to believe that. We have more of you here now, the best of the new generation. The Clave aren’t going to want to lose all of you. I just hope that this time it works and we can work towards peace,”

“I won’t let something like last time happen,” Alec promised, “I’m going to be there all the way, all right?” 

Magnus couldn’t help but feel touched by Alec’s declaration. In lieu of a proper reply, he pressed a hand to the back of Alec’s head and and pushed him forwards, their lips meeting in the middle of the space between them. Their kiss turned from sweet to heated in just a matter of seconds as Magnus gasped into Alec’s mouth and slid a leg over his lap to straddle him. Alec had a flashback of the first time they had kissed on this sofa…and how it had felt kissing Magnus in the forest before they had been interrupted. 

Well…there wasn’t anyone to interrupt them this time, or so he hoped, and the thought sent Alec’s mind into a frenzy as he held Magnus’ body tight against his own and shifted his hips upwards in search of friction.

Alec groaned as Magnus’ hands glided underneath his shirt. His hands felt so smooth as they caressed his abs and up to his chest, lifting Alec’s shirt as they went. Alec didn’t hesitate to raise his arms and allow Magnus to pull the shirt over his head and throw it somewhere behind him. 

Magnus’ mouth attached itself to Alec’s collarbone and then lower across his chest and Alec panted at the feeling. It felt so good that he wasn’t aware of anything outside of the feeling of Magnus’ lips against his skin. 

He couldn’t even feel embarrassed or nervous that he’d never done anything like this before. This was Magnus, he felt so comfortable with this man even after everything that they’d been through that it was kind of crazy. Nothing felt wrong in this situation whatsoever. 

Magnus’ breath hitched as Alec’s hands began to return the favour, dragging Magnus’ silk shirt upwards, fingers skimming lightly across skin. As soon as the shirt was out of the way Alec focused his entire being on the newly exposed expanse of skin. 

Magnus’ body was _gorgeous_. Alec couldn’t decide where he wanted to touch first and made do by running his hands everywhere over Magnus’ chest and back, never stopping and watching the look of wonder that had appeared on Magnus’ face. 

As Magnus reattached their mouths, Alec couldn’t help but wonder if he should really be doing this. He wanted to, by the Angels how he wanted to, but was it right? He’d promised Izzy he would go back to his tent even though he would much rather fall asleep with Magnus in his arms. 

He hadn’t followed Magnus to his tent just for this and didn’t want him to think that he had. Alec wanted much more from Magnus than this, if the warlock was willing to give it to him. They shouldn’t do this too quickly. 

When Magnus pressed down against him, Alec reluctantly pulled his head back and whispered, “Wait,”

Magnus paused, his hands caressing Alec’s neck lightly. 

“Are you alright Alexander?”

“More than alright, but maybe we should slow down,” His train of thought faltered when Magnus attached his lips to Alec’s neck, “Today was crazy and so much has happened lately…we should wait until we’re both feeling better,” No matter how much Magnus could protest that he was fine, he knew that Alec wouldn’t believe him. 

Magnus let out a sigh, “I suppose you’re right darling,” Still, neither of them made a move to separate themselves as their breaths returned to normal. 

“I should go, make sure Jace isn’t getting into any trouble,” Magnus chuckled,

“I’m sure he’s going to be a handful, but I thought you would appreciate your family here with you,”

“I do, thank you.” They kissed once more and Magnus stood up, picking up both their shirts and throwing Alec’s back over to him, “I wanted to ask, would you talk to them as well? They don’t know you and they’re having a hard time accepting what I tell them. If you could explain maybe it will help,”

“If that’s what you want I’d be happy to. Tomorrow evening perhaps,”

“That sounds great thanks,”

They met again at the door to Magnus’ tent as Magnus kissed Alec goodbye. 

“Till tomorrow then darling,”

“Yeah…goodnight Magnus,”

“Goodnight Alexander,” Magnus watched Alec fondly as he walked away. He was so gone for that boy… He never wanted to hurt him again, not for any reason. The situation with Nathaniel had almost killed Magnus, watching Alec look resigned to his fate. He couldn’t do it again, not even if it meant the war having to continue - or maybe even his own death. 

Alec was the most important person to him now and he was going to do anything he could to protect him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come and talk to me on tumblr :) ~ malecmarshmallow


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here!!! I'm sorry about the wait I completely lost my muse and wasn't able to write anything for quite a while, but it seems to be back now!
> 
> This chapter has a little more adult content than I've usually included in this fic, so if that isn't your thing you can skip it over - just watch out for when Magnus and Alec get some alone time!
> 
> That all being said I hope you like this one and thank you guys for being patient with me :)  
> ~~~

Alec was questioned extensively by his siblings as he returned to his tent. They wanted to know everything that the warlock had said to him. Alec felt himself blush as he thought about how he and Magnus had spent more of their time kissing rather than talking and stuttered out a vague description of their conversation. 

Max was already asleep in Alec’s bed so he carefully climbed into the bed next to him trying not to wake him. He told the others he was tired; they could talk more in the morning. They would probably all benefit from some sleep anyway. 

In the morning, Alec was saved from much more interrogation by Max, who was desperate to explore the warlock camp and see what it was like. 

Alec agreed happily to show him, steadfastly ignoring the glares his brother and sister were sending his way. At least Clary seemed to be accepting of the turn of events and attempting to support Alec a little more. 

He was a little surprised by that actually, he and Clary had never been the best of friends. Pretty much their only common denominator was Jace and whilst he could describe Clary as a friend, they’d never really had that many conversations themselves or even spent that much time together without someone else with them. 

Even so, he wasn’t about to complain about her behaviour towards him. Hopefully she could help influence Jace and Izzy to calm down and be a little less angry at him all the time. 

Taking Max’s hand in his they went outside into the bright sunshine of what was starting out to look like a very beautiful day. Izzy, Jace and Clary cautiously followed them, unsure of what they would face outside what was deemed the safety of the tent. 

“So what’s the deal here?” Jace questioned Alec. 

“What do you mean?”

“Are the warlocks going to bother us? Are they going to fight with us? Do we have to stick to certain areas?”

”We aren’t prisoners here, Jace. And even when I was I could go wherever I wanted to. The only rule was not to make trouble. I know that’s hard for you but try your best,” Jace rolled his eyes but Alec was spared his response by Max tugging at his arm.

“Come on, Alec! Show me around!” Alec couldn’t help but smile at his excitable little brother. 

“Alright, let’s go check out the gardens first, I bet there are some new flowers for me to see here,”

As a group they trailed off together. Alec took them to the gardens, the dining area, the baths and they explored in the new forest that surrounded the camp. He could tell that the others were cataloguing away any information that they thought might be important to report back to the Institute later.

The moment they re-entered the main camp, a small pink bullet came darting at Alec. 

“Mister Alec!” Jasmine exclaimed as she hugged Alec’s legs. 

“Hey!” Alec patted her shoulders. 

“I missed you! Look I made this for you but I couldn’t give it to you before…” The young girl trailed off as she took a piece of paper out of her pocket, unfolded it and proudly held it up to Alec. 

Alec took it from her and saw a crayon drawing of the two of them stood together surrounded by flowers. He felt a pang in his chest at just how cute it was. 

“Thank you, Jasmine. It’s beautiful,”

“Really?”

“Really,” He smiled down at her. 

“Let me see,” Instinctively Alec placed himself in front of Jasmine as Isabelle moved quickly towards them. Although her words were soft, Alec tended to expect violence between warlocks and shadowhunters. He caught the look of betrayal on Izzy’s face and was immediately reminded that that was exactly how the warlocks had reacted the first time Jasmine had followed him, and he remembered just how badly it had felt that they thought he would hurt a child. By the Angels he was a terrible brother. 

A little slower, Izzy reached out to take the drawing from Alec and looked at it, her expression changing from betrayal to something a little softer. 

Izzy smiled at Jasmine and crouched down to her level. Jasmine was hiding shyly behind Alec’s legs, cautiously peeking out at Izzy. 

“Hi Jasmine, my name is Isabelle. I really like your drawing it’s very good, I’ll make sure Alec keeps it safe,”

“Thank you,” Jasmine mumbled shyly, clutching a little tighter to Alec. Isabelle stood up and backed away giving the little girl back her space. Just as she was giving the drawing back to Alec, Max popped up between them.

“Can I see it too?” He asked, grabbing it out of Izzy’s hands before she could stop him, “You know how great my big brother is too! So you must be nice,” Max held out his hand to Jasmine and with an encouraging pat from Alec, she shook hands with Max with a smile. 

“I like you!” Max told her sweetly, before running back over to Jace. 

Alec dropped down to Jasmine’s level and picked a pink flower that was close by, handing it over to her. 

“Here, this is for you,” Jasmine giggled as she accepted the flower from Alec and to his slight surprise threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her back tentatively. 

“I have to go now,” She told him, “Bye mister Alec, thank you for the flower!” She hugged him tight once more before skipping off. 

Alec stood and found himself faced with amused expressions from everyone.

“What?”

“You’ll make a great father one day Alec,” Jace said, slapping Alec’s shoulder. 

“What? No…I…what?”

“Alec you’re so good with her and she clearly likes you a lot even though she’s a warlock,” Clary said, “You must have been very settled here,” Even though Alec had explained everything to them, it was clear that it hadn’t settled in their minds properly. His interactions with Jasmine must have helped make things a little more real for them. 

Alec didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that. How could he tell them just how settled he had been at certain points without making them feel like he was a traitor? So instead, he decided to deflect the conversation,

“Let’s get something to eat, I’m kinda hungry.” To Alec’s relief, Max bounded back up beside him claiming he wanted food too so they returned to the dining area. 

Just as they were about to sit down, Alec caught sight of Magnus out of the corner of his eyes. He unconsciously straightened himself up as Magnus approached them. 

“Hey Magnus,”

“Hello Alexander. How is everyone today?” Alec shrugged as he glanced back at his siblings and Clary. 

“Okay I guess. I think Max is having fun,”

“That’s good,”

“So…we’re just getting something to eat, would you like to join us?” Alec didn’t know where his sudden bold invitation came from and felt a little embarrassed, but he wasn’t about to take it back. He didn’t care if the others wouldn’t be too happy about Magnus being there. If Magnus was happy to join them then Alec would be happy at least. 

Magnus did look over Alec’s shoulder to try and gauge the feelings coming from the others, but in the end shrugged and said, “I don’t see why not. I have a little free time now,”

“Great,” Alec smiled widely as they all took a seat around a table. Clary followed Alec to help pick up food for everyone and distributed it around the table. 

Max dug into his food enthusiastically, as did Clary. Izzy was a little more hesitant but slowly began to eat from her plate when she had to admit that she was hungry and the food looked good. Alec was just beginning to relax a little when he noticed Jace. 

His brother was sat there with his arms folded, refusing to even look at the food which had been placed in front of him. 

“Don’t you wanna eat, Jace?” Clary asked him carefully. Alec was shocked by strong glare that Jace sent Clary’s way. He didn’t think Jace had it in him to ever be rude to his girlfriend. 

“I’m not eating anything that warlocks made,” To drive his point a little further, he pushed his plate away across the table. Alec glanced at Magnus quickly, but he was looking unaffected by Jace’s outburst. 

Even Izzy looked a little uncomfortable, “Jace I know this isn’t exactly ideal, but you have to eat,”

“I don’t have to do anything,” He responded, sounding rather petulant. 

Alec tensed and slipped a hand underneath the table, gently grazing it across Magnus’ leg, silently wanting to make sure that he was okay. Magnus inconspicuously dropped his hand down as well and twined their fingers together, squeezing tightly. 

“Well if you want to starve…” Izzy trailed off. Jace just kept glaring. 

“Magnus can you do magic?” Max suddenly piped up, unknowingly breaking the tension in a way only a child could. 

Magnus smirked a little, “Of course I can little shadowhunter, would you like to see?” Everyone seemed a little hesitant, but Max nodded his head excitedly. Alec held more tightly to Magnus’ hand, not letting him pull it away. He didn’t seem to mind, putting down the fork in his right hand to free it and, wary of the jumpy shadowhunters around him, slowly snapped his fingers and created a small blue flame within his hand. 

Max laughed with delight as the flame transformed into a little bird and flapped its way around Max’s head a few times before disappearing in a stream of harmless sparks. 

“That was amazing!” 

“Thank you,” Happy with the magic display, Max went back to eating his food as did everyone else apart from Jace. 

Izzy narrowed her eyes as she looked between Alec and Magnus. She hadn’t failed to notice how close they were sitting to each other and how both their hands were conveniently underneath the table. 

Needing to know for sure, she knocked her cutlery to the floor in what hopefully looked like an unusual display of clumsiness. Crouching down to pick it up she looked across and saw what she was scared to find true. Alec and Magnus were holding hands. 

Just how serious was her brother about this warlock? She needed to know exactly how far this went. 

“Alec, we need to talk. Now.” She insisted, standing up from the floor. Alec looked a little panicked,

“Why?” 

“Now Alec, brother to sister chat. Let’s go,” As Izzy began storming off, Alec didn’t have much choice but to follow, knowing that her wrath would be even worse if he didn’t. He could hear Jace following behind, telling Clary to watch over Max. 

Izzy led them back through the trees for a long while, before deeming that they were far enough away from others to have this conversation. She didn’t seem surprised that Jace was there too, after all, he did fit in to the ‘brother’ category as well. 

“Alec I need to know exactly how deep you are in with this warlock,”

“I don’t know what you mean,”

“You were holding his hand, Alec! Right there at the table, you were holding his hand. If it was anyone else, I’d be ecstatic. But he’s a warlock. I knew you had some crazy little crush on him which is just ridiculous, but I need to know if it’s more than that,” 

Alec pointlessly looked to Jace for support just to find him staring just as intently as Izzy. He wanted an answer to this too. 

“Izzy…do you…I mean do you really have to ask? Magnus means a lot to me. You want to know how deep I am? I’m right down in the bottom of the damn ocean and I really don’t care if you two don’t like him. I’d rather you’d give him a chance rather than just writing him off because he’s a warlock, but if you don’t that’s your choice. I’m not asking your permission here,”

“Are you two dating?” 

“I…” Alec faltered for a moment. Were they dating? Sure they’d made out a few times, but they’d never actually spoken about defining their relationship. “I don’t know,” He finally settled on saying. 

“Do you want to?” Jace asked, surprisingly calmly. 

“Yes,” Alec didn’t even need to think about the answer to that. He wanted badly to be able to say he and Magnus were together. 

“Do you really even know him?” Izzy shouted, “Do you even know what his warlock marks are?”

Alec was about to shout back that of course he knew, but just managed to stop himself. What were Magnus’ marks? Every warlock had a mark to show what they were. Like Jasmine had pink skin and Catarina blue. Some warlocks had horns or maybe even wings. What did Magnus have and why did he hide it? To his knowledge none of the warlocks in the camp hid their marks. What did Magnus have to hide?

“Don’t you think it must be something really bad?” Izzy continued when it was clear Alec had nothing to say, “To hide it even among warlocks? Doesn’t that bother you?”

Yes. It did. But he wasn’t about to let her know that, “Not really. If he wants to hide his marks, then that’s his choice. Besides, when have looks ever been that important to me?”

“Since you started crushing on the stupidly hot warlock who is clearly hiding something. How do you know that is even what he really looks like at all?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Alec had had enough. He knew it was going to be difficult for his siblings to get used to the idea but now he was done. It wouldn’t kill them to be supportive after he had supported them their whole lives,

“Izzy, I was there for you through all your dalliances with the Seelies, I helped you hide it from mom and dad even though I knew I shouldn’t and even though I didn’t agree with it I didn’t stop you because you were happy. As long as you were safe and happy that was all that mattered to me. Why can’t you try to be there for me now?”

Izzy looked suitably taken aback, “Alec this is different…we aren’t at war with the Seelies,”

“But they’re just as dangerous. You’d be stupid to think otherwise.”

“Alec…”

“No! That’s enough! I like Magnus and I want to be with him. We’re going to work together to try and stop this war once and for all so you two just need to start getting used to it, okay?” Without waiting for an answer Alec turned and marched away, not bothering to see if they were following him. 

All he wanted was Magnus, to hug him and have him tell him things were going to be okay. It probably wasn’t true but that didn’t matter. 

Returning to the table, Alec saw Clary and Max were now alone. 

“Where’s Magnus?”

“Another warlock came and called him away. How did your talk go?” Alec sighed and dropped down onto a chair, resting his head in his hands. Max didn’t even look up from the comic he was reading that he had brought to the camp with him. 

“That well, huh? Look…I know we’ve never been the best of friends but we went through so much to get you back and well…even though it hasn’t gone exactly to our plan we still got you back. I can see how much you and Magnus care about each other so I’m gonna talk to Jace, see if I can stop him fretting over you so much,”

Alec was a little touched by how nice she was being to him, “Thank you Clary,” He told her sincerely, “But you don’t have to. He’ll come around or he won’t, that’s his problem,”

“Magnus said he would come back to talk to us all again later, is he gonna tell us more about the war?”

“Yes, I think so. I’m not sure how much you’ll all believe though, if you don’t believe me,”

“Jace and Izzy are still convinced that you’re under a spell. Give them time, when they see that you’re not they might get better,”

“Or worse,” Alec had to be realistic, “Once they find out for sure that I’m not under a spell that could be so much worse for them because it really does mean I’m some kind of traitor,”

“You’re not a traitor, Alec. You could never be,”

“Thanks. This talk has been great but I need to go chill out by myself for a while. Are you okay to keep watching Max?”

“Of course,” Alec nodded his thanks and returned to his tent, happy to have a little while alone so he could try and collect his thoughts. 

~~~

He was actually left alone for quite a while, at least an hour or two. It gave him lots of time to think, but it didn’t really lead him to any answers. And now that Izzy had mentioned it he couldn’t stop thinking about what Magnus’ warlock mark could be. He really wanted to know. Would Magnus mind if he asked? 

When his family infiltrated back inside the tent, he couldn’t think about it anymore. They tried for some light conversation, nothing to do with the war or warlocks. It was a good break for them. At least until Magnus showed up. Alec was happy to see him, but he knew that everything would take a much more serious turn again. 

It would be best to get it out of the way then though, the sooner they could understand the reasons for the war, the sooner they could start getting back to normal again. 

“Hello shadowhunters!” Magnus greeted happily. He was carrying a pile of books with him, “I have these for you to peruse at your leisure,” Magnus dropped the books down onto a coffee table, “I can tell you so much but it doesn’t matter if you won’t believe me. Here are books written at the time of the war, both by warlocks _and_ shadowhunters. There are some journals too, rather than just official prints,”

Clary picked up one of the books, looking at the cover with a vague interest. 

“I hope you all appreciate them since I went to a lot of trouble to find them,”

“How do we know you didn’t fake them?” Jace asked. 

Magnus sighed dramatically, “Unfortunately you don’t, however that’s not really my style. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one,” Izzy joined Clary, picking up her own book and settling down in a chair to read. Jace scowled but also followed suit. 

Max was still too busy reading a comic to worry about the new books Magnus had brought in. 

“So this is where I leave you to it, but feel free to ask me anymore questions if you need,” Magnus looked at Alec and gave him a small smile before leaving the tent, giving them their piece to read and talk as they needed. 

“I’m…um… I’m gonna go too,” Alec told them. 

“Go where?”

“I want to talk to Magnus some more. You guys can take your time to read and talk everything out. When you’re ready you can come and find me,”

“Alright,” Izzy agreed reluctantly, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to stop him anyway.

Alec jogged out of the tent to try and catch up, “Magnus!” He called out, to get the other man to slow down. Magnus paused and faced Alec, looking surprised but not unhappy. 

“Was there something else you needed Alexander?” He asked nicely.

“No, I just…are you busy? Do you have time to talk?”

Magnus’ whole face seemed to brighten, “You know I will always make time for you darling. Come on,” Magnus inclined his head, indicating that Alec was free to join him. 

Once they were alone inside the tent, Alec couldn’t quite contain his nervousness. Why did Isabelle have to bring up the marks? Why hadn’t Alec thought about it before? Could he really just ask about it? 

“Alexander are you-“

“What’s your warlock mark?” Alec blurted out without thinking and he Immediately felt his face flood with redness and the overwhelming urge to punch himself in the face for being so insensitive. If Magnus hadn’t offered the information himself, obviously he didn’t want Alec knowing about it. Oh god just how much more socially awkward could he get? 

Upon seeing Magnus’ widened eyes and tense posture Alec tried to back pedal his question, “No, I’m sorry. You can…you can just forget I asked. I’m sorry,” Alec lowered himself down onto the sofa and pointedly looked away, unable to hold eye contact as he was feeling too embarrassed. 

“Do you really want to know?” Magnus asked quietly. 

“I…only if you want me to know,”

He became aware of the depression of the sofa as Magnus sat next to him and felt soft fingers beneath his chin, gently encouraging Alec to look at him. 

“I can show you…but, I don’t want you to think of me any differently.” Alec cupped Magnus’ cheek softly in his palm. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, since he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t look at Magnus any differently. He had no idea how he might react to whatever Magnus’ warlock mark was. 

He didn’t even realize that he’d closed his eyes until Magnus’ hand was covering Alec’s and he spoke gently, “Open your eyes Alexander,”

Slowly, carefully, Alec opened his eyes and his breath caught in his throat. He wasn’t looking into the wonderful dark brown eyes that he was accustomed to. A striking gold covered the entirety of Magnus’ eyes, save for his pupils which were an inky black and slit just like a cats. 

It was only when he heard Magnus’ timid, “Alec?” That he realized he’d been shamelessly staring for the last…he didn’t even know how long. 

“Why do you hide them?” Alec smoothly ran his thumb across Magnus’ cheek, where his hand still rested. 

“To begin, I hid them from you to make you more comfortable. If I looked more human, then maybe you would be more likely to accept me. After we became close… I didn’t want you to change your mind.”

“I won’t change my mind about you Magnus,” Alec leant in closer and brushed his lips over Magnus’, “They’re beautiful,” He barely registered Magnus’ sharp intake of breath before kissing him firmly, needing to reassure Magnus that he really wasn’t going anywhere, especially just because he happened to have different eyes. 

Magnus whimpered and plastered himself as close to Alec as he possibly could, his hands tightly grasping at Alec’s hair. 

Breaking away, emboldened by Alec’s positive reaction to his eyes, Magnus seemed to turn playful. 

“You know, my eyes aren’t my only mark,” Magnus undid the top button of his shirt and smirked when Alec’s eyes darkened, “Do you want to find the other?”

Alec’s arousal shot through him deeply like a bolt. Yes, he really wanted to find it. It didn’t matter what it was, Alec wanted to see. 

He clumsily continued unbuttoning the rest of the shirt, relishing in the occasional feeling of Magnus’ skin. 

Magnus’ head tilted back in pleasure as Alec’s mouth began to trail across Magnus’ chest as each new section of skin was revealed. Reaching the bottom of the shirt, Alec pulled the fabric apart and pushed at the shoulders until it was halfway down Magnus’ arms, revealing his truly wonderful biceps. 

Paying closer attention now, Alec slowly dragged his gaze down Magnus’ torso and to his nicely defined abdomen, and frowned slightly when he noticed a distinct lack of-

“You don’t have a belly button,” Alec had to feel it just so his brain could comprehend what he was seeing and Magnus shivered as he had always been a little sensitive there. 

“Does it bother you?”

“No…not even a little. Your marks are you, Magnus. You don’t need to hide them from me anymore if you don’t want to,”

Magnus gasped, words of thanks failing him as he was overwhelmed with a feeling he wasn’t quite yet ready to describe. His back hit the sofa as Alec pushed him over and a moan escaped past his lips as Alec’s tongue licked across his belly. 

Alec had no idea where his sudden confidence had come from, but he was enjoying himself far too much to question it or consider stopping. He felt so good just being able to bring Magnus pleasure, it took him so far that he was pushing his hand beneath the waistband of Magnus’ pants and wrapping his hand around his hard length, catching the warlock completely off guard. 

“Alec!” Magnus mewled as his hips rocked upwards into Alec’s hand. He could feel his magic bubbling away just underneath his skin, desperate to burst out and escape. He did his best to keep a tight lock on it, he couldn’t do anything that might freak Alec out now because that definitely wouldn’t end well for either of them. 

As Alec’s hand gripped harder and he increased the pace of his movements, the noises Magnus was making were like music to the shadowhunters ears. His own breath caught again as Magnus reached down to return the favour, unzipping Alec’s pants and slipping a hand inside. They weren’t in the most comfortable position but that didn’t matter to them in that moment. 

Their breaths mingled together as they moved and they kissed and kissed, stopping only when the need to breath became too much. 

“Magnus…I’m…yes Magnus I’m gonna…” Alec’s hips stuttered and thrusted up faster. 

“Yes, Alec!” Alec’s vision went white as pure bliss flooded through his body and he collapsed against Magnus, vaguely aware of the stickiness on his hand letting him know that Magnus was well satisfied also. 

Magnus huffed out a laugh, running his free hand through Alec’s hair, “You never cease to amaze me darling,”

“Glad I can keep things interesting for you,” Alec replied once he’d caught his breath, remembering the first time Magnus had spoken those words to him, after Alec had first apologized to him for being rude. Oh how things had changed since then. 

Magnus freed his hand and dropped it off the side of the sofa, out of Alec’s line of sight and quietly and carefully summoned some tissues so he could clean them both up as best he could. He didn’t want to risk using magic to do it for him, there was still a chance that Alec could freak out about that. 

Once he was properly satisfied that they were clean enough, Magnus tugged at Alec’s arm until they were both stood and he led Alec over to the bed, where they cuddled together underneath the sheets after Alec had removed his shirt and Magnus dropped his from his arms to the floor. 

“Magnus?”

“Hmm?”

“What are…do you…are we…” Alec sighed in frustration. Why was it that he _still_ couldn’t articulate himself properly when he needed to?

“Yes, Alexander?” Magnus prompted kindly, his fingers lightly trailing across the patterns of Alec’s runes, although carefully avoiding the area where his parabatai rune used to be. 

“Are we…dating?” The fingers paused in their movement briefly, before resuming. 

“Do you want us to be dating?”

“Yes…I think so. Do you?”

“I would like nothing more, my wonderful Nephilim.” Alec’s heart fluttered at Magnus’ use of the word _’my’_ and he snuggled closer into Magnus’ arms. 

For the first time in a long while Alec felt peaceful and really, truly happy. 

~~~

The next morning Magnus was jolted awake by someone knocking loudly, asking to gain entry to his tent. With a groan he forced himself out of the comfort of Alec’s arms, who had somehow managed to remain asleep, and stumbled around to find his discarded shirt and pull it over his head. Stepping out of his tent he found Malcolm there waiting for him. 

“Is there a particular reason you had to bother me at this ungodly hour?” The sun was only just starting to rise and there was a crisp chill to the air. 

“Good morning to you too, Magnus,” Malcolm appraised Magnus’ dishevelled appearance with amusement, “But yes, I am here for a reason,”

“What is it then?” 

“Nathaniel.” Magnus felt more awake all of a sudden. 

“Has he said anything?”

“No. We’ve kept him in interrogation since your return but he’s remained silent. We were hoping you would try. Maybe even your presence there could inspire some kind of information from him,”

“I’m not really sure what I could do,”

“Would you consider it? His silence proves that he is guilty of something, the sooner we can discover it the better,”

“I agree. Alright, give me half an hour and I’ll be there,” Malcolm nodded his thanks and left as Magnus slipped back into the tent. 

He was unable to resist the lure that was Alexander, looking warm and comfortable beneath the sheets so he climbed back in next to him, trailing his fingers softly down Alec’s arm in an attempt to wake him. 

He was rewarded by Alec scrunching up his face cutely and reaching out to pull Magnus back to him. 

“Why are you awake?” He inquired, his voice rough with sleep. 

“There’s something I need to do,” Magnus told him softly, “You can go back to sleep darling, feel free to stay here as long as you like.”

“Will I see you later?”

“If you want to darling then of course you can,” Magnus kissed Alec once of the lips and once again on his forehead, “Until later, then.” 

Using his magic to get himself ready for the day, Magnus exited his tent looking as fabulous as one would usually expect him to be, but with a certain fire in his gaze as he headed for the interrogation rooms. 

~~~

Nathaniel’s blank face didn’t change as Magnus came into his view. In fact, he’d barely changed at all since arriving in interrogation except for the occasional gasps and screams of pain. 

Magnus met his gaze easily and conjured a chair to sit opposite to their former leader. 

“It’s good to see you again, Nathaniel. Let’s see what you can tell me, hmm?” His cat eyes glinted dangerously and felt a smirk curve on his lips as he saw something akin to fear appear in Nathaniel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr :) ~ malecmarshmallow


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
> So I have some news...this is the PENULTIMATE chapter of In Times of War. That's right, only one more chapter after this one!   
> It's been a long journey but it's been fun and thank you for sharing it with me :)  
> There is going to be a sequel! I'll post a little more information about that in the last chapter.   
> Enjoy! ~~

Alec slept comfortably for the next few hours, warm and snuggled deeply in the middle of Magnus’ large bed. As he woke he could keenly feel that he was alone and missed Magnus’ presence. He had a vague memory of the warlock telling him he was leaving, but that was all. 

With a yawn, he sat up and stretched out his arms above his head, shaking off his sleepy daze. He didn’t know what time it was, but he knew he should probably be getting back to his tent and his family. 

Although he was slightly dreading the reactions they might have to him clearly having spent the night with Magnus. He smiled and felt himself flush as he remembered what they’d done the night before. Alec had to bite his lip and get up quickly to stop himself getting too distracted by it. 

He found his clothes scattered on the floor and pulled them on before looking in the mirror that Magnus had attached to a wall. 

Quite simply – he looked a mess. He tried to tame his hair as much as he could with his fingers and straightened out his clothes. With a shrug, he decided that was going to have to do. Hopefully he wouldn’t attract too much attention through the camp before he had a chance to change. 

Thankfully, even though there were quite a few people out and about, they didn’t spare Alec too many looks and he was able to hurry to his tent without feeling too self-conscious. 

Inside his tent, everyone was awake and there was a buzz of chatter which stopped as soon as Alec entered, leading to an awkward moment where they all just stared at each other. 

Finally, Izzy cleared her throat and asked, “So…how was your night?”

“Um…It was good. Did you all read the books?” He asked, trying to deflect the conversation away from himself as quickly as possible. 

“Yeah we did,” Clary chimed in, “They were pretty interesting,”

“So…how do you guys feel about it?”

“It’s a lot to take in, but in a way it does make a bit of sense,” Izzy admitted. 

“And I remember being told stories by my grandmother when I was little about Valentine and some of the things he did. I mean…she didn’t quite tell me he was a homicidal maniac who started the war but…close enough,” 

Alec didn’t miss the way Jace had remained quiet and had nothing to input to their discussion now. 

“We have some questions for Bane though, before we fully decide what we want to do with this information,” Izzy ended with. 

“Of course, I’ll let him know next time I see him. I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you,” 

“ _We_ need to talk,” Jace stood, looking serious and faced Alec. 

“A-alright,” With an encouraging nod from Clary, Alec followed Jace out of the tent, only a little annoyed that he hadn’t been given enough time to change his clothes first. Not like he was going to complain about that out loud though.

Jace led him out into the forest for their customary privacy. He was much calmer than he had been since arriving in the camp and Alec wondered if Clary had spoken to him like she said she would.

Jace crossed his arms, looking a little uncomfortable as the two of them stood opposite each other. 

“We need to talk about all this seriously, Alec. You broke our parabatai bond,”

“I know,”

“Even though we’re together here, I still feel like a part of myself died. There’s a hole inside that won’t go away,”

“I know, Jace. I feel it too,”

“It’s killing us, Alec. How could you do it?”

“I told you before, I was going through torture, I thought I was going to die. What kind of parabatai would I have been if I’d have let you go through all that for longer?”

“I needed to know what was going on with you, you could have been dead already for all I knew!”

“I did what I thought was right. I’m sorry if you don’t agree with me, but could you say you wouldn’t have done the same thing if it had been you?”

Jace unfolded his arms and turned away, leaning himself against a nearby tree his anger clearly deflating again. 

“I don’t know,” He said at last, “Maybe. We have to find a way to fix this,” Alec cocked his head, feeling confused. 

“Fix it? How?” Alec had never heard of a bond being repaired after it had been broken. Jace turned around again, shrugging. 

“No idea, but we have to try. We’re both here, we’re both alive. We don’t have to go through this anymore, I need our bond back,”

“I want that too, but is it even possible?”

Jace smirked, “When have we ever let that stop us?”

“True,” They shared a smile and for a moment, everything felt like it did before. When everything was good between them. 

“So you spent the night with the warlock, huh?” Jace teased.

Alec rolled his eyes, “He has a name, Jace,”

“Well I’m not sure if I want to use it yet. Are you sure you know him well enough to trust him?”

“Yes,” Alec answered confidently, “I do,” 

“Alright. I may not trust him, but I trust you. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try. Okay?”

Alec was touched. It wasn’t too often Jace showed just how much he cared, but when he did it always felt good. Like magnets, they were drawn together into a hug, holding each other tightly and slapping each other on the back. 

They made their way back into the camp together, both feeling a little lighter as they did. 

Back in the camp they found Izzy, Clary and Max sat around a picnic table. The girls were testing Max on his runes, holding up cards with the runes for Max to name. 

“Fire, deflect/block, soundless,”

“Great job Max!” Izzy complimented. 

“Looks like you’re doing good Max,” Alec said, dropping a hand to Max’s shoulder as he sat next to him and Max beamed at him, preening at the attention from his older brother. 

“Alec, spar with me,” Jace said.

“What?”

“I’m sure you’re out of shape by now, prove me wrong,” Jace challenged. 

“Bring it,” Alec stood back up easily rising to the challenge and the two pulled off their shirts. The girls put down the rune cards so they could watch the show. 

Alec and Jace faced each other down, for a moment Alec experienced an awful flashback from that night in woods when he and Jace had fought for real. From the look in Jace’s eyes, he had too. It didn’t matter now, shaking himself out of it quickly, Alec lunged forward aiming for an uppercut to Jace’s jaw, which Jace blocked and returned with a hit to Alec’s stomach. 

Around the edges of their fight, a crowd of interested warlocks had started to grow. They seemed a little bemused by the proceedings but a whole lot intrigued by the sparring and it made for a fun interval in their day. 

Izzy was sure she spotted a couple of them making bets on who was going to win, too. 

Alec managed to knock Jace over, but he rolled through it and was back on his feet in seconds, blocking another hit and delivering his own kick towards Alec, who only just managed to dodge it in time. 

The crowd of warlocks was getting even bigger, almost forming a ring around them. 

“Come on Alec, are you even trying?!” Jace taunted, but Alec chose to stay focused and not rise to the bait. It had been years since Jace had been able to distract him that way. 

Alec wasn’t sure how long they’d been fighting, but they kept pretty evenly matched. But then he caught a glimpse of someone in the crowd. Magnus. Magnus was there watching them, too. 

Of course Jace noticed the momentary slip in Alec’s concentration and took full advantage of it. Within seconds he had Alec pinned to the ground, both of them breathing harshly and Jace’s hand pressing almost painfully against Alec’s throat. 

“Admit defeat?” Alec let out an exasperated exhale and a hit his head back against the ground. They could hear some grumbling for the warlocks and the sounds of objects bet changing hands. 

“Dammit,” Jace grinned in triumph and jumped up, holding out a hand to help Alec up, “You won’t be so smug next time,”

“Keep thinking that, brother! Or just admit that I’m better,”

“Never,” They laughed good-naturedly with each other. Magnus approached them, a strange look in his eyes that Alec couldn’t quite place. 

“What a wonderful showing,” Jace backed away to join Clary as Alec locked eyes with Magnus and it seemed that the world slipped away around them and they were only aware of each other. 

“Glad you enjoyed it,”

“Oh, most definitely,” Magnus eyed Alec’s half naked body with clear interest, “Did you sleep well after I left?”

“I did. Would have been better if you had stayed though,”

“I wish I could have, Alexander.” Magnus placed a gentle hand on Alec’s arm, “In fact I must go again soon, but I couldn’t miss the spectacle that had drawn so many,” Alec smiled,

“I’m happy we could provide some sort of entertainment. By the way, they read the books last night and want to ask you some questions, is that alright?”

“Of course, I can drop by to see you all tonight again,”

“That would be great. Thank you Magnus,”

“You’re welcome. But now I really do have to go, till later?”

“Till later,” Alec confirmed. Magnus glanced at Alec’s lips and titled his head upwards slightly in a way that was extremely telling of what he wanted, but he looked to Alec for permission before doing anything, aware that they held the attention of Alec’s siblings. 

Alec hesitated for the barest of moments, then leant down and kissed him. Magnus was his boyfriend now – Jace and Izzy were just going to have to get used to that. And he didn’t think that Max was going to have a problem with it. Their kiss ended softly and Magnus smiled, brushing his fingers across Alec’s jaw fondly before leaving. 

Turning back to the others, he found himself being stared at by some very thoughtful expressions. Suddenly feeling embarrassed by his actions, he bit his lip as his skin flushed a light shade of pink. Why did he have to be so prone to blushing all the time?

No one spoke as Alec joined them at the table so in attempt to divert their attention once more he picked up the rune flash cards and continued to test Max, who hadn’t picked up on any of their awkwardness. It worked and after a while Alec handed the cards to Max so he could test him. Alec got a few of them wrong on purpose to see if Max would notice – he did of course, and took great pleasure in calling out his older brother for his mistakes. 

Just an hour later, Magnus returned to the group. 

“I hear you have some questions for me?”

“We do, let’s go back to the tent,” Jace led the way. They got comfortable in their chosen chairs, Alec sat beside Magnus trying to avoid the urge to touch the warlock in some way or other. 

“Fire away, then,” Jace and Clary were listening with rapt attention as Izzy began the questioning. Max picked up another book to read, he didn’t think he was going to be too interested in this particular conversation between the grown-ups. 

Izzy leant forward, resting her elbows on her legs, looking intent. “How did you know that we would take you prisoner?”

“I didn’t, it was one of many calculated plans,”

“How did you know we would come for Alec and find you, then?”

“Your dear friend Meliorn. After you went to him for answers he called Nathaniel to fill him in and to know to expect you soon,”

“So when we arrived that day, and you let Alec take you into the forest, you knew we would be there?” If Alec wasn’t mistaken, there was a light blush creeping its way across Magnus’ face. 

“No. That was just…unfortunate timing on your part.”

“And how do you feel about Alec, exactly?”

“Iz…” Alec held his hand up to try and dissuade this turn of the questioning. 

“No Alec, I need to hear it from him,” 

Magnus caught Alec’s outstretched hand as it looked like he was about to complain again, “It’s alright, Alexander. I don’t mind,”

_But I do,_ Alec wanted to say, but just managed to refrain himself. It wasn’t time to start an argument. 

“I care for your brother very deeply, I tried my best to keep him safe and whilst I wasn’t always successful I will do my best always to keep him from harm,”

“But why Alec? I mean… I know that my brother is great, but why would you, a warlock, be interested in him?”

“I’ll admit at the start I wanted his help to end the war. I still want that. But as I got to know him more…I don’t know,” Magnus looked down at his hands in a rare display of uncertainty and Alec definitely wasn’t mistaken this time, there was a blush staining his cheeks. 

Izzy nodded, accepting Magnus’ answer. 

“You don’t want to hurt him…yet we watched you almost burn him to death,” 

Magnus flinched, “Not my finest moment,” He admitted, “It wasn’t something I wanted to do but it was the best tactic I had to remove power from Nathaniel,”

“Why did you need to remove power from him?”

“Nathaniel wants war, he wants to destroy you all and take power of the shadow world for himself. A majority of us don’t want that, it wouldn’t be a nice experience for anyone.”

“And what about the warlocks who do follow him? How did you pull off your little coup without them getting in the way?”

“They were…taken care of. After Nathaniel confided in me that you would be coming for Alec, I started putting stages of my plans together. I began quietly asking around, figuring out who stood where. I gathered enough powerful warlocks who agreed with me and Nathaniel’s followers were taken out of play.”

“You killed them?”

“No,” None of them really wanted to ask what had happened to them. 

“After we were taken by you, I was able to fill Alec in on most of my plan, so he sent a message to set the warlocks in motion,” Izzy and Jace sent sharp looks at Alec. They hadn’t known just how involved he’d been in the plan to get them out, fortunately enough they chose not to comment on that just yet.

“So who’s your leader now?”

“I am. With the support of the others I have taken temporary leadership until someone more suitable is decided upon or Isaac, our leader before Nathaniel, is found,”

Alec couldn’t hide his shock. Or hurt. Magnus was the leader of the warlocks now? Why hadn’t he told him? Izzy continued her questions before Alec could bring it up. 

“And what are your plans for leadership?”

“Keep my people safe, work with the Clave to come to a peaceful solution to this war.”

“Alright,” Izzy nodded and stood, “That’s about all we have for now,” She looked between Alec and Magnus, clearly noticing how unhappy Alec was, “We’ll contact the Institute now,” Jace, Izzy and Clary left the tent, Jace calling for Max to follow them when he didn’t appear to have noticed what was going on, leaving Alec and Magnus alone. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in charge now?”

“I’m sorry, it never came up,”

“That’s bullshit, you could have mentioned it,”

“Well you didn’t ask about how things were going now either,” Alec faltered for a moment and stood up, stepping away from Magnus to put space between them.

“We can’t have secrets anymore, Magnus,” He said quietly and gestured a hand at both of them, “None of this between us will work if we hide things. I know you like to keep part of your plans and ideas to yourself but I can’t deal with that now. We need to be open with each other, can you do that?”

Magnus stood and pulled Alec into a hug, “I’m sorry,” He mumbled into Alec’s neck, “I promise, no more keeping things from you,” Alec let out a breath and held Magnus back tightly. 

“Thank you,”

Magnus didn’t let go as he kept speaking, “I need to go for another meeting with the High warlocks.” He didn’t seem to have any intentions of moving, though, “Would you like to join us?”

“Really?”

“Yes. The meeting is about the possible negotiations with shadowhunters. Your input could be valuable and it will help to keep you in the loop. What do you think?”

“Sure, I’d like that,”

“Wonderful,” Magnus leant back just enough to tilt his head upwards and kiss Alec deeply, but pulled away before either of them could get truly distracted by it. 

“Let’s go then,”

Magnus and Alec walked to the meeting hall hand in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to chat? Find me on tumblr :) @malecmarshmallow


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! We're here at the final chapter!  
> I want to thank you all for sticking with me to the end and enjoying my work, and thank you so so much for all the comments and kudos which have kept me inspired and writing more and more!
> 
> Read the end notes for more information about the sequel :)
> 
> With all that said, please enjoy the last chapter :) ~~

Elias had never felt more uncomfortable in all of his hundreds of years of life. What on earth had he been thinking when he’d agreed to stay behind in the New York Institute to be one of the warlock representatives on Magnus’ behalf? If it wasn’t for Tessa being there with him he was sure he would have portalled out at the first available opportunity. 

It didn’t make things any better that the shadowhunters just didn’t know what to do with them. Didn’t know how to act around them or what to say. There were more than a few slurs and hostile language aimed in their direction, whether the person speaking realized that they were being offensive or not, shadowhunters really did just believe that they were superior. 

A lot of it came from Maryse Lightwood. Elias knew that _she_ knew what she was saying, but he couldn’t say he was all that surprised. If only she knew just how much her eldest son was really in love with a warlock and not just under a spell. 

They’d both been questioned (rather politely, much to Elias’ surprise) several times about Magnus and what the warlocks really wanted and neither of them had been physically harmed at all. 

They had been supplied a room each and access to the kitchens if they wanted it – they didn’t. Elias wasn’t going to eat anything made my shadowhunters. It was easy enough for them to summon their own food. 

And even after a week, there still hadn’t been any word back from the Clave about the war or the possibility of bringing it to an end. 

It was making Elias feel more and more on edge every day. He was well aware that he was in enemy territory with people who definitely still had access to a device which could remove his and Tessa’s magic at any moment they chose. Things still had time to go drastically wrong. 

Not to mention the fact that it was getting increasingly more difficult for him not to get angry at the lies that all shadowhunters believed. Magnus had been insistent – they weren’t to mention it at all. They had to be diplomatic, if they brought up the Clave’s lies it would just make them more defensive and nothing would get done. 

Thank god for Tessa’s calming presence, keeping him from losing his head. Why had anyone thought that he would be suited to being a diplomat here? 

The constant communication with the warlock camp helped him feel a bit better too, though. They were never out of contact, sending messages at least twice a day. If anything happened to them, Magnus would know immediately. 

He could get them out before something bad happened. He trusted Magnus to do that. 

Elias sighed as he was called into yet another meeting. Taking a deep meditative breath, he readied himself. 

~~~  
~~~  
~~~

Alec’s presence hadn’t been required in that first meeting he’d attended with the warlocks and he actually didn’t input a lot into their discussion, but he was happy to have been there and got the chance to listen. There was so much someone could learn just from listening. 

But now the meetings were just going in circles and circles. Everything in the camp had plateaued into an awkward wait. They’d discussed all possibilities and options at least a hundred times or more, all they could do was wait for the Clave to finally make contact. 

Alec knew that his siblings had been in touch with their mother, but he wasn’t too sure what their messages had included. Apparently Maryse didn’t want him knowing too much about their plans, which his family grudgingly had to concede to her. 

They were highly apologetic, but he couldn’t find it in him to be too bothered about it. He knew what their mother was like and he wasn’t surprised. 

In contrast, he knew a lot about Magnus’ messages to Tessa and Elias. Magnus always shared them with him and sometimes they even wrote the responses together to send back. It made Alec feel so much more useful and appreciated. 

It also helped to keep the boredom at bay. They were all too wired up to do much, just waiting and waiting. 

Why did the Clave have to take so long? Was it really such a hard decision? Or were they just lording it over the warlocks by taking longer to try some warped attempt at showing their power? 

Whatever it was it was driving Alec crazy. And everyone else, to be honest. He could see it in other people’s eyes and everything was getting more tense by the day. 

Alec had taken to staying in Magnus’ tent more often so they could release some of the tension together. They never had sex, Alec wasn’t quite ready for that, but the romantic time that they spent together always left them feeling sated and just that little bit more relaxed. 

Magnus never complained about the lack of sex either, so Alec didn’t worry that what they were doing wasn’t enough for the warlock, even though Magnus must have been much more experienced in that area. It wasn’t really something that Alec liked to think about too much. 

At least Izzy and Jace seemed to be a little more accepting of their relationship, especially after they’d gotten to know Magnus a little more. Alec had even overheard part of a conversation between Izzy and Magnus a few days before about fashion, of all the things!

Really, how could they hate Magnus when they could see the clear love and devotion on their brother’s face every time he so much as looked in the warlock’s direction? Or someone just mentioned his name? 

Much to Alec’s surprise and delight, Jasmine and Max had become fast friends and could often be found playing with each other and getting into all kinds of trouble around different areas of the camp. 

Just about everyone was too charmed by them to be exasperated or tell them off, though. 

Max had even began introducing Jasmine to some of the comics that he really liked, after Magnus had summoned a bunch of them for him, much to Max’s delight. 

It was on a random tediously dull evening when things finally changed. 

Jace received a fire message from Lydia, on behalf of the Clave. 

A meeting of High Warlocks was called to address the message as soon as possible. 

“So what does this message say?” Malcolm Fade asked, as Jace hadn’t wanted to divulge any information until the meeting was in session. 

“The Clave have agreed to a meeting, their top people to meet yours,” Jace explained. 

“When?”

“In two days,”

“Where?”

“They have suggested several neutral locations for you to look at, but you’ll have the two days to agree to one or make your own suggestions.”

“May I see the list?” Magnus inquired and Jace handed it over. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the Clave’s suggestions of a possible location were actually in neutral territory, rather than somewhere more suited to shadowhunters. 

Magnus placed the list down in front of him, ready to return to it later, “So, do you four have any concrete ideas about what direction the Clave is going to be coming at us from? What do they want?”

Alec, Jace, Clary and Izzy were silent for a bit too long, letting everyone know just how much that they _didn’t_ know.

“Sorry Magnus, but we really don’t have any idea,” Clary finally admitted, “I spoke to my mom but the Clave haven’t really come forward and shouted about how they feel about this.”

“So this could go in just about any direction then?”

Clary shrugged, “Pretty much. I’m sorry we don’t know more,”

“No matter,” Magnus waved offhandedly, “There’s no point discussing that now – we know what we want, we’re just going to have to wait and see what they want,”

Magnus paused and looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone, “I will discuss the possible locations with Malcolm later, so that leaves us with two more topics of discussion, one: how will we handle security and safety? Two: how many people are we going to send?” He fixed his gaze on the shadowhunters once more, “Am I right in assuming that you don’t know how many people the Clave will be sending?”

At their sheepish looks, Magnus swiftly passed over the topic, “Alright, what do you all think?” He directed back at the warlocks. 

The warlocks all broke off into their own discussions, which Magnus allowed. They could discuss all they liked together and form their ideas before having to present them before Magnus. 

He allowed them to talk for the better part of fifteen minutes, before clearing his throat and catching their attention. 

“Ideas?”

“We should carry weapons,” One warlock called out, “If they bring their device to block our magic we would be at their mercy once more,” There were several murmurs of agreement from around the room. 

“And what kind of weapons are we supposed to take?” Magnus questioned. 

“Swords, daggers, anything we have in storage. It would be better than nothing,”

Magnus nodded in agreement, “Does everyone agree?” Again he could hear all the warlocks give their agreement. 

“Um…” Magnus’ eyes drew immediately to Alec, “I’d be careful about the weapons if I were you,” He said quietly, feeling a little self-conscious as everyone was looking at him. 

“And why is that, Alexander?”

“Well…the Clave may feel threatened enough by you just with your magic. They may not react favourably to seeing you with physical weapons as well,”

“So you would suggest we go in unarmed?”

“No…just, discreetly. Weapons that they might see but are not quite so noticeable. Something that won’t attract too much attention,” Magnus nodded thoughtfully. 

“I agree,” He said at last, “Better that way than to risk everything from the start. Now – who do we send?”

Malcolm spoke up, “Yourself, Tessa and Elias will be present so our first three are chosen for us. I would suggest sending at least another fifteen warlocks for back up. They do not have to be included in the negotiation but for our safety. And if something should go wrong as before well…at least there wouldn’t be so many of us,” 

Silence hung heavy in the air after this as everyone was reminded of the terrible events of the not so distant past. Even the shadowhunters looked contrite by the actions of their people, did they even deserve peace after everything they had done to the warlocks? 

“Then we should ask for volunteers,” Magnus said at last. 

“Who would be willing to risk their lives like that?” Yelled a warlock from the back of the room, Magnus couldn’t see who it was but his eyes narrowed. 

“Which is better? To risk your life once for the chance of future peace or remain risking your life for eternity? Because that is what we are doing. At war we are at risk all the time, we could die at any time. This will not be any different.” 

Slowly, warlocks began to rise, pledging themselves to go to the negotiations. It didn’t take long until fifteen had offered themselves. 

“Very well, we are decided.” Magnus made a quick note of the names of all the warlocks standing, “Make sure those of you agreeing to join us go to our stores and find some discreet weaponry, we should be well prepared.”

He waited a moment to see if anyone had anything else to add, when they didn’t he finished with, “Alright it would appear we have everything we need, you’re free to go,” 

Magnus waited for everyone to leave first and only rose after the last warlock had left the room. To his slight confusion, he found his exit blocked by two shadowhunters with rather fierce expressions. 

“Can I help you two?” He asked Isabelle and Jace, trying to be patient with them. 

“We need to talk to you, it’s important,” Jace crossed his arms over his chest to keep up with his menacing act. 

Alec frowned and stood next to Magnus, “Guys what is this about?”

“Nope Alec, this one isn’t for you. Go with Clary,” Alec felt a little taken aback by his sister’s order and kind of wanted to ignore it on purpose. 

“Why?” 

“Because we need to talk to Bane and we’re going to do it now,” 

“Come on Alec,” Clary said gently and began to tug his arm, leading him out of the meeting room. Alec sent an apologetic look at Magnus over his shoulder and the warlock smiled back at him, not betraying any feelings that he might have had about speaking with his siblings. 

Magnus gracefully sat himself back down into his chair. He may as well be comfortable for this. 

“So…what can do for you?”

“We’re not blind…we can see how Alec feels about you. It’s obvious now that he’s not under a spell or being forced into this, for some reason he just really…likes you,” Jace began.

Magnus tried not to let his emotions show on his face, he wasn’t sure where this conversation was going yet and he didn’t want to show any kind of weakness in front of them. 

“So what we really want to say to you is…if we find out that you’re playing Alec or if you’re using him…or if you _ever_ hurt him…we’re not going to hesitate to kill you,”

Ah. So it was a shovel talk. Magnus wishes he could say he wasn’t surprised, but he really was. He hadn’t thought this was coming at all. 

“I see,”

“‘I see’? That’s all you have to say? No one will ever find your body, warlock, if you so much as hurt another hair on my brother’s head,” Magnus had to hand it to her – Isabelle could be very threatening when she wanted to be. 

“I understand your threats, but you don’t have anything to worry about. I’m sure I’ve said before; I have no intention of hurting your brother. If I do…I won’t try to stop you,”

Isabelle and Jace looked at each other for a moment and seemed to reach some kind of agreement as they nodded and turned back to Magnus. 

“Alright. Just…be good to him, okay?” Izzy betrayed her softer side, “This is all new for Alec, he doesn’t have any experience here,”

“I know, I’ll always do my best for him,”

“Are you coming back to see him now?”

Magnus shook his head, “Will you tell him I will see him later tonight? I have one more thing I need to do,” Izzy nodded and her and Jace left the room. 

Magnus followed after them but turned in the opposite direction to head towards where Nathaniel was being held. He’d been to see the warlock a few times, there had been all different techniques used to try and get him to talk – both painful and not so painful – but so far nothing had worked. 

Nothing could stop Magnus’ determination though. He would find out what had happened to Isaac and how Nathaniel had found himself in power. 

He snapped his fingers in the room and sat himself down in the chair that appeared in front of Nathaniel. 

“Good evening,” He greeted politely, “How are you feeling today, Nathaniel?”

Nathaniel just smirked. 

“Well you’re clearly being treated well if you can still manage to look like that,”

“Treated well? Of course,” Magnus stayed relaxed, not letting on his surprise that after all this time Nathaniel had decided to talk. Why was he talking now? What had changed? 

“So your accommodations are to your satisfaction then?” Magnus returned, just as sarcastically. Nathaniel raised an amused eyebrow. 

“Very good. I have to admit, you’re very skilled to have been here all this time and not breathe a word. Not to mention how you must have gotten rid of Isaac, it was nice work,”

“It was,” Nathaniel smirked again, clearly happy that his work was being recognized. 

“Can you share with me how you did it?”

“I could,” 

Magnus looked at him expectantly. Something had definitely changed for Nathaniel to be willing to talk with him now. 

“When _was_ the last time you spoke to your father, Magnus?” Magnus froze. He couldn’t possibly mean…

“What does Asmodeus have to do with this?”

“What do you think?” Magnus’ blood drained from his face. Isaac was being held in Edom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was it!! What did you guys think? Please let me know :)
> 
> Okay... the sequel! Watch out for... 'In Times of Fire'
> 
> summary: Just when things were starting to look up, Alec should have known that it couldn't stay that way. Isaac is stuck in Edom and it seems like Magnus is the only one who can get him back. Izzy, Clary and Jace have to finally face the consequences of their disobedience and Alec has to face the fact that the Clave thinks he's a traitor. And when a warlock turns up dead, seemingly at the hands of a shadowhunter, does that mean an end to peace before it's even begun?
> 
> What do you think?? :D
> 
> I'm gonna take a little break from writing for a while, but look out for the sequel in a couple of weeks :)  
> Again, thank you guys so so much for reading, I love you all!  
> ~~~<3


End file.
